Refuge From Darkness
by ClosetFMAfan
Summary: The Theory of Equivalent Exchange states that happiness must be paid for by misery, moment for moment. That misery endured means happiness for the future. That every ray of sunshine is paid for by shadow. The Darkness will always be there for the Light. But the Light lives one, endures. Even in the Darkest day, the Light burns on. AlMei Interconnected Oneshots.
1. Welcome

**Welcome!**

**I'm going to have to explain myself a little here. I really am very sorry to keep you way from the story, but this is just explaining the formatting and the guidelines ect so if you don't want to you can just skip ahead to the first chapter. I would suggest reading this though if you haven't already.**

**This is a sequel to my story A Source of Hope, which is a sequel to my story Good For the Soul. Together, GTFS and ASOH described the story of Al and Mei from when Al went to Xing at the end of FMA Brotherhood as an Ambassador to the birth of their third child. Mei taught Al alkahestry for some years in Xing, and upon his mastery of it, they left together to explore the Eastern countries. Shortly after arriving back, Al confessed his love for Mei and they began dating (wow, 50 chapters of mindless fluff summed up in two sentences XD). ASOH picked up from that point and went through their marriage and the eventual miscarriage of their first biological child, the adoption of their first and second child, and then the eventual birth of their third child and only biological one. (Another 50 chapters in one sentence.) Liwu, their oldest and only boy, is 8 at the beginning of this story, about nine. Nina, their oldest daughter, is 7, and Emily is only 1. They are currently living in Xing and Al is working as an Amestrian Ambassador. **

**It follows the same format at GFTS, which, if you are not familiar with it, is an odd mix between a oneshot collection and a chapter story. Each of the chapters follows a particular timeline and situation, but each of them tells its own story, sometimes coupled with a previous or following story. The only main plotline they follow is the story of Al and Mei's lives after all of their children have been born.**

**I update every Sunday, almost always without fail. The chapters are grouped together based on time periods.**

**There is lots of EdWin and LingFan and probably more Royai than the other two stories too, as well as other canon pairings. Expect lots of cute fluffy shots full of embarrassing moments. There will be dark moments, (you know, blood, assassinations, pain, small scale heartbreak) but on the whole it's happy. I like happiness.**

**I'll take a moment here to tell you all up front that I don't Fullmetal Alchemist. I don't, never have, and never will. As sad as that makes me. But I do own this and I hope you enjoy!**


	2. A Learning Experience

**Why hello! Fancy seeing you all here at the beginning of the third (and last) installment of the AlMei Interconnected Oneshot Collection. ITS THE BEGINNING OF THE END MY FRIENDS... haha...**

**Sorry if I freaked anyone out if you got a message saying that this was up and then couldn't find it... I did delete the story after I posted it. There were some things that were wrong with it that I wanted to fix and I didn't want people reading the unfixed version, so I just deleted the whole story. Sorry! But it's up again!**

**This takes place only like a month after the end of ASOH**

* * *

"Bassdor Night, come in!"

"I hear you, Blond Butterfly."

"They've captured Liwu!"

"Uh-oh. This is getting serious Blond Butterfly. We might have to retreat."

"No! We can't! We have to get the cookies!"

"But the risk! Blond Butterfly, it's too dangerous, I can't let you do that!"

"I can do it, Daddy!"

"Bassador Night."

"I can do it Bassador Night!"

"But Blond Butterfly, you know what will happen to you if you fail."

"I can do it."

"… I wish you luck."

"I don't need luck."

The spy abandoned her communication device and crept slowly down the halls. She was the top spy in the whole world! She would succeed where all others had failed. This was her mission. There was nothing but the mission.

She ducked under a razor that was going to cut her head off and jumped over a laser that would tell the enemy that she was coming. The spy got down on her hands and knees so that she could sneak past the guard who was trying to catch her.

"Bassador Night, I'm past the dragon!"

"The guard's a dragon! I thought it was just a person!"

"No! It's a dragon with big nasty teeth and fire!"

"You'd better be even more careful then!"

"I will be!"

The mission had to go on! A dragon wouldn't stop her! The spy crept forward, staying quieter than she had ever been, eyes fixed on her target. It took all of her strength to push the boulder to the ledge in the cave so that she could climb on top of it and reach the target.

The cookies.

"And what do you think you're doing?"

The spy's eyes widened.

She had been caught!

"Bassador Night! I've been caught!" she yelled.

"Blond Butterfly! Don't give her any information!"

"I won't talk!" she cried out, turning to the evil dragon guard.

"Oh, you won't will you?"

"I won't!"

"Let's see how a bath with loosen your tongue, eh?" The spy's eyes widened.

"No! Not the bath!" The guard's eyes twinkled with evil.

"Yes. The bath!"

"No!"

The guard went to grab the spy, but she was too quick for the guard and jumped off the boulder. She ran past the cages where the prisoners were kept to be tortured.

"Oh no you don't!"

"Save me!" the spy cried out.

"Blond butterfly! Hurry up, I'll protect you!" The spy hurried as fast as her legs would carry her, but the dragon took off, flying through the air breathing fire and caught her in its talons!

"I'll make you talk!"

"I won't, I won't!"

"Your partner's already told me everything!"

"No! Give Liwu back! Stop torturing him!"

"He's on my side now!"

"No! He wouldn't!"

"Yes, he has."

"Noooooo! Daddy, save me!"

"I'm sorry, I'm helpless! You know my powers are useless against her!"

"Save me!"

"Be brave Blond Butterfly!"

"Daddy!"

Alphonse Elric was left on his knees to watch as his daughter was dragged into the bathroom by the monstrous dragon that was his wife.

* * *

For having just endured his daughter's torture at the hands at his wife, Alphonse Elric was in a pretty good mood. The seven year old had emerged from her bath twenty minutes later with a suspicious smudge behind her right ear, but with her hair wet and hanging around her in blond strings. She was pouting, but Al was able to tell that she was forcing it. As much as Nina complained about baths, she knew that it really was important to be clean and that it was possible to have fun while taking a bath.

But she certainly didn't want anyone thinking she _liked _them. Oh no, oh no, oh no. Perish the thought.

He had successfully cooked dinner for the family for the twelfth time in a row. While he and Mei usually took turns cooking, ever since Emily's birth a little over a year ago, he had been taking on cooking responsibilities more and more so that she could get her rest. The entire pregnancy had been very hard on Mei, especially since she had been stuck in her bed since the moment her doctor heard about her pregnancy.

While Al knew that his wife would probably tear his head off for ever calling her any synonym of the word "delicate", and she really wasn't, if there was one thing Mei Chang was not, she was not delicate… but she hadn't exactly been at her strongest since Emily's birth. And having to care for a baby as well as keeping watch over Liwu and Nina… he was more than happy to take some of the burden off her shoulders by cooking dinner.

She had retired early and Al was currently in charge of the entire brood. Nina and Liwu were both working on their homework at the kitchen table while Al sat in the living room with Emily, who was quite fascinated with their cat, Cookie. Cookie was understandably trying to stay as far away from the grabby baby as possible, but Emily just thought it was a fun game and would always stumble after the cat.

"Dad?" Al looked up over the rim of his glasses. He had been reading, though making sure to pay attention to the cat's squeals.

"Yes Liwu?"

The Xingese boy frowned, tapping his pencil on the table and chewing on his lip. "Will you… Will you teach me alchemy?"

Al's eyebrows rose. That was unexpected.

"What?"

"I want you to teach me alchemy." Nina had stopped working on her own homework to stare at her brother. Al felt like mirroring her expression.

Well… Liwu was almost nine. He had been about that age when he went to learn from Teacher, and he had already known quite a bit about alchemy at that point. Mei had been even younger when she entered Master Hishu's tutelage.

He and Mei had never really talked seriously about teaching their children about alchemy and or alkahestry. They knew that if/when they ever did they would make sure to be completely honest with them about the risks and dangers of it. They would do everything they could to make sure their children learned something from their mistakes. But they had never really talked about when they would teach them. It had just never come up before and it just hadn't happened.

"Why do you want to learn?"

"Well I… I want to… I want to be able to do it. To… to be like you…"

Al blinked again. "Liwu…"

The eight year old stuck his chin out, not breaking eye contact. It reminded him a great deal of a younger Ed.

"Alright."

Liwu blinked. "Really?"

"Of course. Are you sure you want to do this though? Alchemy's not easy."

"I want to do it, Daddy."

"Okay. We can start lessons tomorrow if you want. It's a bit late to start working on it today, but we can start on it tomorrow for sure. " Liwu nodded. "Would you rather learn alchemy or alkahestry? Or both?" He would have to talk to Mei about this. He could of course teach Liwu either one, but she might want to get involved in he was more interested in alkahestry than alchemy.

"Both," he answered almost immediately. "If you don't mind teaching me…"

"No, I'd love to," Al said, genuinely grinning now. He hadn't realized how much he had wanted one of his children to take an interest in alchemy. The idea of teaching Liwu excited him. He would start with the basic concept; what alchemy _was_. That was a concept basic enough that it applied to both alchemy and alkahestry so they would work with that concept for a while before splitting into the differences between the two… Liwu was already familiar enough with the principle of _qi_ so they wouldn't have to spend years getting him to feel it…

"Would you like to join us, Nina?" he asked, turning to his daughter. "I'd be more than happy to teach both of you."

The blond took a lot longer to consider the offer.

"I dunno Daddy…"

"You should at least try it out. See how you like it."

"… okay."

Al grinned again. He found it a bit hard to focus on his book from that point on.

* * *

"Why do you want to learn alchemy?" Quyi asked, frowning.

"Because it's really cool! And… I want to be like my dad."

"You mean sitting in boring meetings in court all day?"

"No! I mean someone who can help other people. Dad's an alchemist and an alkahestrist. He's helped people all over the world in Amestris and Xing and in East. I want to be able to help people! And I thought that maybe if I did this… Dad would…" the rest of the sentence came out in a mumbled mash.

"What?"

"Never mind," Liwu snapped, red.

"You don't have to get mad at me, I just asked what you said."

"You wouldn't understand anyways."

"… what do you mean?"

"See? You don't even understand that." Quyi frowned.

"Because I'm an idiot."

"What?"

"Because I'm an idiot. I know. Everyone think so." Now Quyi was mumbling enough that Liwu had trouble understanding him. The Prince was staring at his shoes.

"What? No!"

"Yes you do! Everyone does. I only know how to do stupid pranks and annoy people. I can't use fancy words or sentences like Fu or even do half the things Jun-li can… I'm just stupid."

"No you're not! Only the courtiers think that, and they're just stupid."

"Even Vien is smarter than me."

"No she's not, she's only a baby. She doesn't even know how to talk. Emily's smarter than her."

"Then Emily's smarter than me."

"She's not smart at all. You know a lot more than her. That makes you smart."

"Yeah… right." Liwu had never heard his cousin talk like this.

"Quyi…"

"No, you're right. Just go learn your stupid alchemy." Quyi sat down cross legged propping his head on one hand.

"Quyi."

"What?"

"… why don't you learn it with me?"

"What?"

"Why don't you learn alchemy with me? I'm sure Daddy would be happy to teach you to. He's teaching Nina too, so he'd probably not mind teaching you too!"

"… really?"

"Yeah. Think of all the pranks you could do if you knew alchemy!" The Prince smiled.

"I could…"

"Yeah! And we could practice it together!"

"… okay!"

Liwu grinned. "Should we ask Uncle Ling?"

"… yeah probably. But he's busy…"

"… well Dad's only teaching us the really basic stuff today so I'm sure Uncle Ling won't mind. And if he does then Dad can talk to him."

It sounded good to the two boys.

Al was a bit more hesitant when they came to him and asked him, and Nina seemed a little upset by this new arrival to their lessons, but he eventually decided that the first lesson wouldn't hurt.

"It's only information that anyone would be able to learn picking up a textbook," he told them. "It's information that anyone could learn. But I'm not going to teach you any further until you have your father's permission. I know for a fact that he hasn't had the best history with alchemy and he if doesn't want you learning it, I'm not going to go against him."

"Okay. I'll talk to him when I can…"

"Talk to him today after the lesson."

"But he's busy…" Al smiled.

"He'll make time for you, Quyi. Though, if he seems hesitant about letting you learn, I would suggest promising to hold back on the pranks a little." Quyi grinned sheepishly, but nodded.

"The first thing I'm going to tell you kids, all three of you, is that alchemy isn't for everyone. Some people never understand it no matter how hard they try. Some people understand it really well, but they can't actually perform a transmutation right to save their lives."

"Like Uncle Ed?"

Al paused before answering. "No, not like Uncle Ed. Uncle Ed used to be able to do alchemy. He used to be better at it than me."

"What happened?" Quyi asked, honestly curious. He had been very shy about asking his Uncle if he could join the alchemy lessons, but Al had been more than happy to let the Prince join them, though he did say that they had to ask Ling about it before they got to actual theory.

"That's a lesson for another day. But I promise I will answer that question completely." And he would. That was information that had to hear. It was a story they hard to hear. A lesson.

"But what if I want to know now?"

"It will make more sense if we wait for later."

"Hmm. Okay..." Al smiled a little at Quyi. He was certainly the most curious of Ling's sons. Or… at least the most openly curious. He was sure that Fu was just as curious; he was just far sneakier about how he went about getting his curiosity sated.

"So if you aren't good at alchemy, I don't for one second want you to think that there's something wrong with you. Most people can't perform alchemy. And if you're one of them, obsessing over it will cause more harm than good. I'm not going to continue teaching it to you if you drive yourself mad."

"Okay," Nina said, nodding. Quyi followed her example, and while Liwu hesitated, he eventually gave in and gave a sharp nod.

"Now, can anyone tell me what alchemy is?"

There was confusion.

"What are you actually doing with it?"

"You're changing something into something else," Liwu eventually volunteered.

"In a manner of speaking, yes. Alchemy is when you use energy, tectonic or _qi_, to change matter. Matter is what everything is made up of. Everything that you can see or touch is made up of matter. My hand is matter. The water we drink is matter. The air we're breathing is matter. When you use alchemy, you can change that matter. So this ground in front of us," he bent down and drew a quick, simple transmutation circle in the dirt, "can be changed from dirt," he activated the array, "into something else." A small earthen cat now stood in the circle.

Quyi's eyes were wide. "Whoa! Do that again Uncle Al!" Liwu smiled, happy that his cousin was impressed. Nina, who had seen it before, was nonetheless excited.

"And we're going to learn to do that?" Quyi asked, eyes still wide.

"That's the idea."

All of a sudden he was alert and ready. Al grinned, remembering another boy just discovering the thrill of seeing something change from one things to another by this magical science.

"Now, there are three steps of alchemy: Comprehension, Deconstruction, and Reconstruction…"

* * *

**If anyone's confused about the seemingly random Quyi hating on himself in there... uh... to be honest I don't know where it came from? I just seemed like something that would be a serious issue for Quyi, people thinking he's an idiot because he likes to pull pranks and goof around. We all sometimes get these ideas in our head that we just believe everyone accepts as fact even if they're totally not true and we're the only one that thinks other people think that. As for it belonging in the first chapter of my AlMei story... um. It just kinda happened and I believe that a lot of the time you just have to go with what the story wants you to write. Hope ya'll think it wasn't too out of place.**

**Sorry there wasn't much Mei in this chapter. I realize that it is an AlMEI story, but... once again using the what the story wants to write thing, she just didn't really fit in there? She will be in the other chapters, don't worry.**

**Anyways, Yay! Alchemy lessons!**

******I'm glad to see you all here, and here's to another 24 chapters of AlMei fluffs and feels and lots of loves!**


	3. Bumps and Bruises

**Yeah, now that I have this chapter done... there's only one chapter of the rest of this story that I don't already have planned. Which is both relieving (I don't have to come up with random fluff and find out how to turn it into a 2000 word chapter!) and disappointing (I don't get to come up with random fluff and find out how to turn it into a 2000 word chapter...). But oh well.**

* * *

It was almost utterly silent in the house.

Mei peaked one eye open and smiled at the sight around her. With the exception of Emily, who was taking her nap, her entire family was in front of her, with the addition of not only one, but two of her nephews. While the Heir to the Throne had very little interest in alchemy, when he heard that his aunt and uncle were also going to be teaching his younger brother meditation and combat skills as well, he deigned to join in for those lessons.

All five of them (Al included) were sitting cross legged in front of her with their eyes closed and breathing deeply. Even though all of them knew how to sense _qi_ on a daily basis, Mei found that it was always a good idea to take the time to really get away from other ideas or cares and really feel the flow around you. It was one thing to be connected to _qi_ at all times, and another to take the time and really feel it.

It was perhaps one of the things that Al had been able to do for her the most ever since they adopted Liwu. When he took them out and left her with some time to herself, that was usually what she would do. It helped put things in a different perspective, a different perspective that was very valuable when she was beginning to get exhausted and snappish.

Quyi's brow was furrowed deeply as if he was trying really hard to get something. The expression made Mei smile again. Jun-li's face was completely blank as he sat there with a completely erect back. Nina was smiling slightly while Liwu was chewing on his lip. It was a bit of a habit of his. He did it whenever he was focusing on something absentmindedly. Her eyes lingered on Al who looked completely relaxed. He loved meditating.

She closed her eyes again and probed the Dragon's Pulse. All five of them flared brightly in her consciousness. More exploration revealed Emily asleep in the nursery and Cookie curled up on her and Al's bed. Outside the house, the entire garden thrummed slightly with life. Fainter than human or animal life, but certainly there.

Further exploration showed the life of the people on the streets and in the other houses.

She took a deep breath in before taking in a deep breath and opening her eyes.

"You can open your eyes now."

The rest of them did so, slowly. Nina started grinning. "That was so cool Mommy!"

"It was," Liwu agree, Jun-li echoing his sentiment.

"… Quyi?" Mei asked, looking at the boy who still hadn't opened his eyes. His name startled him and his eyes opened.

"Aunt Mei…?"

"I said you could open your eyes."

"Oh… I didn't hear you. I guess I've never really gotten that into feeling _qi_… I didn't know you could feel that much."

"Well that's why we're here. So you can learn like that."

He smiled and nodded.

"Could you feel how much energy there was?"

All of them nodded.

"That's the basis of alkahestry. All of that energy that's created by all of these living things can be harnessed to change the world around us." She dropped her kunais into the ground in the circles she had already drawn and activated it, explaining as she did so. "The matrix works just like a normal alchemic matrix, but you need the knives to focus the energy from one spot to another. The _qi_ that you're using will carry the transmutation, but you need the knives to show the transmutation and the energy where it needs to be directed."

"And it's because you're using _qi_ that you can heal people with it right?"

"Exactly," Mei responded, surprised but please that it had been Nina that had spoken. She hadn't been very interested in lessons until a few days ago when Mei first introduced the idea of meditating. The little girl loved losing herself in the Dragon's Pulse. Al had already chuckled to her about how it was pretty obvious which one, alchemy or alkahestry, Nina was more interested. Liwu seemed to be leaning towards alchemy, but he was still determined to learn both.

"Aunt Mei?"

"Yes, Jun-li?"

"… I'm sorry to interrupt, but is that all there is for today besides traditional alkahestry lessons?"

"Actually, Al was planning on starting sparring lessons today. It is mostly going to be basics though, if you have somewhere else you need to be."

He seemed to debate this for a few seconds before nodding and sitting down. "I will stay."

"You're certainly free to," she said kindly. "Where was I?"

"Using _qi_ to move transmutations," Quyi said helpfully.

"Thanks you. So we use the flow of energy from person to person and animal and plant to move the energy for the transmutation from one place to another. The most important part of truly learning alkahestry is knowing this energy flow and really understanding it. Once you understand it, the more complicated part of a alkahestry comes in, which is the formulas and the matrixes. But without really understanding the Dragon's pulse, you will not be able to perform alkahestry. So I want all of you to spend at least 15 minutes really meditating every day. At least. And 15 minutes of real meditation. Not sitting down for 15 minutes, 15 minutes from the time you really start to meditate."

All of them nodded, even Al, which Mei rolled her eyes at. Al just grinned.

"Now, I believe Jun-li wanted to start on combat lessons?"

* * *

Jun-li and Quyi were already well familiar with the basics of how to fight and protect oneself. Not only were they the Emperor's sons and didn't have a body guard with them at this exact moment because Ling trusted Al and Mei to be able to keep them safe, but their mother was also one of the best guards in all of Xing. She was not able to train them the way she would have liked perhaps because of their other responsibilities, but they would certainly be able to hold their own in a fight with any assailants that weren't professional. Even so, Jun-li probably would be able to protect himself against a professional assassin. Combat came naturally to the young man.

Liwu and Nina… not so much.

They had taught them basics. They knew what to do if something ever would to happen. But mostly Al and Mei had been hopeful that they would never have to learn. And it had always never seemed to be a priority. Mei hadn't been much of a target since Jun-li was born and she lost her position as Heir to the Throne. As it was, she was fifth in line if Ling were to die. Al was an Ambassador, but as far as someone trying to kill him… Things had been quiet and relatively safe.

However, upon asking to be taught alchemy and alkahestry, both of them acknowledged the fact that they would more or less have to learn. Mei and Al had both been taught simultaneous with learning how to fight. Training the body and mind at the same time. It was bad form to train the mind and let the body go weak.

Both of them agreed to the fact that they needed to teach them this.

Al however… appeared quite indisposed towards actually doing it.

The had started the lesson by sparing with each other, just to show the kids what it looked like, what they would be learning to do. It was quite fun, actually. Mei had only started sparring again a few months ago and she had only done relatively easy routines. This was the first time she had really had an all-out fight with anyone. She could see from the grin on Al's face as they fought that he was enjoying it as much as she was.

He eventually won by catching her in a bear hug that she couldn't wiggle her way out of. If it had been a real assassin she would have tried throwing her head back and breaking his nose, but that didn't seem like the best idea to carry through with, so she went limp to show her surrender. He let her go and they bowed to each other.

The kids started applauding.

Al grinned and made a dramatic bow that Mei rolled her eyes at him for.

"Now we're going to split you four into two groups. Jun-li and Quyi, you two know a bit more so I'll be teaching you while Al teaches Liwu and Nina some of the basics. Then we can start teaching you four together. You two come over here," Mei said, gesturing towards her side of the mat. Al took their children to the other side.

They both stood there waiting for her instruction.

She didn't instruct them, instead straight off attacking Jun-li.

He reacted immediately and deflected her punch, rolling under it and throwing his own. Mei ducked and rolled under him, popping up behind him and kicking him behind his knees. He fell down but quickly popped back up. In the meantime Mei dropped Quyi to the ground by knocking out his feet from under him.

She had both of the Princes dancing around her in a few seconds. Jun-li was very skilled, Mei had to admit. He had definitely inherited his mother's talent in martial arts. Quyi was also fairly skilled, though she was able to land many, many more blows on him than on Jun-li.

About ten minutes into teaching/practicing/fighting, though, she heard Nina cry out in pain. Mei, who was in mid flip landed and was too distracted to avoiding Jun-li's punch. She rolled with it though and immediately zoned in on Nina, expecting the worse.

Al was crouched over her, babbling something about her being alright.

"It's going to be alright, it's okay, you're okay. Mei! Mei!"

What had happened? Had she been injured? Broken something? Knocked out some of her teeth? Bleeding profusely?

"What is it? What's wrong?" she asked, hurrying over.

She wanted to rub the bridge of her nose and perhaps slap Al when she was what it was.

"She split her lip."

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Daddy," Nina said, touching her lip and wincing slightly.

"It's going to swell if we don't get ice on it now. Come on," he said, standing her up and leading her towards the kitchen.

Mei blinked.

"… I… alright. Um… Where were we Jun-li? Middle of a fight. Right. Liwu… you can, um, watch us."

"Okay Mom…"

They continued their fight, Mei occasionally stopping them to point out a flaw in either of their defenses or give them advice at a better next move.

Al came back with Nina ten or twenty minutes later with some ice on her lip. He began teaching them again, but when Mei looked over to watch their progress a few minutes later she noticed that Nina wasn't even doing anything. When she gave the Princes a break and asked Nina what she was doing (Al was showing Liwu the proper form when kicking…) the Amestrian girl responded "Daddy said he doesn't want me doing anything dangerous for the rest of the day."

"…"

* * *

"Alright. Let's see, Liwu, Nina, over here. We'll pick up where we finished last time—"

"Actually, Al, I was thinking that Jun-li and Quyi already know a lot of the things that I would teach them since my fighting style is very similar to Lan Fan's. If you teach them they'd probably be able to learn more than if they were learning from me. I'll take the children."

"Oh… alright, I guess." Mei smiled sweetly at him before taking Liwu and Nina to their side of the practice mats… and really teaching them.

Both of the them were very sore, very bruised, and ended the day with some much worse scrapes than a split lip… but Mei didn't think she had ever seen Liwu grin wider than when he actually managed to knock Nina down by sweeping her legs out from under her about a week later.

* * *

**Please review!**

**Also: I am an insane idiot that has masochist tendencies apparently. Whooohooo. You don't want to hear the list of all the things I've been taking on recently. I'm going to die. Whoooo! Don't worry. If I die, my little sister's in charge of posting all of my AlMei stories/scraps/plans/timelines ect. She's the person I talk about them the most to, so she should be able to stick them together in a way that'll make sense for ya'll! Even in my death you will have AlMei! Just proves how much I love ya'll.**

**See you next week! (maybe)**


	4. Adjustments

**Well I've survived one week at least! That's great news! It's gonna be the next two that'll really be the test. March is turning out to be a very very busy month. Very busy.**

**Now, I have to ask your forgiveness for this chapter cause... it kinda takes place three years from the last one... I do try to transition as best as I could, but in case you don't get it from the chapter, this is three years later. There really wasn't any ways I could space things differently so we didn't have that huge time jump. Sorry. But it's extra long! I hope that somewhat makes up for it!**

* * *

When Al first heard the plan, his first reaction was pure shock. Ed had told him that it was something he had been considering, but he never thought… not in his lifetime. Certainly not with his help.

"I… are you sure?"

"I'm positive, Alphonse."

"But… but you know what will happen."

"I know exactly what will happen," the voice responded through the phone, voice firm. "This decision was made long before I ever met you, Alphonse."

"… Very well. What do you need my help with?"

* * *

The process took three whole years.

Three long years.

Liwu grown almost a whole foot, shooting up like a weed. He was already threatening to be taller than his mother. He worked relentlessly on studying alchemy and practicing with his mother. He learned how to transmute remotely, complex substances, complex structures and shapes… and he learned his father's story.

"_This was you?" Liwu asked, glancing up at his father with wide dark eyes. Al glanced down at the picture of him and Ed, back when Ed was still the Fullmetal Alchemist and smiled a little at the memory._

"_That's me."_

"_And… you didn't have a body?"_

"_Not underneath the armor, no. It was my body." Liwu looked almost sick._

"_But how… how are you…?"_

"_How did I get my body back?" Al sighed heavily before rubbing the back of his neck. "A lot of sacrifice, Liwu. Uncle Ed and I spend years wandering around the country trying to find a way to get it back. Eventually we discovered about Father's plot to turn the country into a Philosopher's Stone—"_

"_You mean the stories you used to tell us are true?"_

"_Some of them are. We were hoping that telling you those stories to you would make it easier for you to understand once we told you the whole truth. During the final battle, Uncle Ed's automail arm got destroyed and he was pinned. Father wanted to try to absorb his soul for his Philosopher's Stone… and—"_

"_You sacrificed your soul for his arm. Like in the story."_

_Al nodded._

"_But then how… Uncle Ed. He sacrificed his alchemy to get your body back. That's why he can't do alchemy anymore."_

"_Exactly. Everything turned out for us alright in the end. I met your mother when she came to Amestris looking for immortality. I decided to come to Xing after my body was strong enough. Uncle Ed got married to Aunt Winry and he's never regretted giving his alchemy out. But could have gone terribly wrong. We could have died. Millions of people could have died."_

"_And it didn't even work anyways."_

"… _exactly. Human transmutation is impossible. I've seen Truth, Liwu. And it's not worth it." Liwu bowed his head before nodding. _

He told Nina a few months later when she demanded to know why Liwu had told her off for saying that Al's ability to transmute without a circle was cool.

After he explained the entire story to her she remarked that "Maybe transmuting without a circle isn't that cool after all."

Nina didn't really take much of an interest in alchemy, instead working more with her mother with alkahestry. Even then she wasn't the most dedicated of students, but she seemed to enjoy spending the time with her mother.

Emily on the other hand was already fully engaged in learning alchemy. It had been quite a surprise when the four year old had first toddled over to Al and Liwu during a lesson and sat down and started watching.

At the end of the lesson, she demanded to be taught how to make the pretty lights.

She absorbed it like a sponge.

It was like having to teach a younger version of himself.

She was already transmuting the simple shapes by the time he made the announcement.

The announcement that they were moving.

"What?" Liwu shouted, shooting to his feet.

Nina's eyes were wide as she stared at her father.

"What do you mean we're moving to Amestris?"

"I mean we're moving to Amestris," Al said gently, looking down at his lap. Mei was looking down to. She hadn't been very happy when he began discussing it with her, but she had agreed that it was what they needed to do.

"But why?" An almost pleading note entered Liwu's voice.

"You know about Amestis's government, don't you kids?"

"Yeah. It's a stratocracy, Quyi and I learned that a few months ago."

"Well, your Uncle Roy has been working with me for a very long time to change that."

"What?"

"Next week he's going to announce that in three months all power will be handed over to a democratically elected counsel to run the country."

"But why does that mean we have to move?" Nina asked, completely ignoring the gravity of the words Al had just told them.

"You know I'm employed by the government of Amestris, so this change directly affects me and because it directly affects me it affects all of you. I don't know what's going to happen with the change. Everything could change or things could go more or less the same way they always have. And it could take years to work out. I have to be there."

"But… but all of my friends are here," Nina protested. Emily watched the entire affair with wide eyes, not quite understanding what was going on except that everyone seemed to be agitated about it.

"You can make new friends."

"But I don't want to make new friends!" Liwu said. "I can't just leave Quyi!"

"It's not like you're never going to see him again. I'm going to come back to Xing a lot, you can come with me some times. And we'll be closer to your other cousins."

"But they don't like us!"

"That was a long time ago, kids. And you've never really gotten the chance to know each other before now. Now you can have that chance."

"But what about school and a house and and…"

"We've already found a house in Central with Uncle Roy's help. We're going to stay there until things settle down with the transition. You can go to school there. It will be a new experience for you both."

"What if we don't want to?"

"Liwu—"

"Dad, I'll be the only Xingese kid there! It'll be just like that time!"

There was silence in the room as they all frowned at Liwu. It was Mei that broke it. "What do you mean, sweetheart?"

He colored. "I… when we used to live in Resembool. The other kids all hated me because I was so different from them."

"Oh, sweetheart, it's not going to be like that—"

"No, Mom! How do you know that? It's going to be just like that!"

"I wish you had told me, I would have done something." Liwu shook his head at his father.

"I didn't want to. And I don't want to. I'm not going to go! I belong in Xing!"

"So do I," Nina said stubbornly.

"Yeah," Emily said, nodding her head.

Al sighed heavily and hunched his shoulders. "Kids, I understand that you want to stay here, but sometimes things happen and you have to roll with the punches."

"I'm not going."

"You're going."

"No—"

"Liwu Van Elric, you will be moving to Amestris with the rest of this family and that is final!"

Al's shout was almost as if he had punched his son. Liwu stared at his father with his jaw hanging slightly open before shutting it and running from the room. Al, who had stood up when he shouted, sank back down on the couch, burying his face in a hand.

Nina and Emily's eyes were both wide as they stared at him.

"Girls… I think it's time for bed," Mei said quietly. Nina nodded and grabbed Emily's hand, leading her to her room.

"I shouldn't have yelled."

"… no you probably shouldn't have. But he does need to accept the fact that we are moving."

"I know." They sat there for a few minutes in silence.

"Did it ever bother you?"

"What?"

"Being the only Xingese woman in Resembool."

"Al…"

"Did it?"

"I… sometimes. Most of the time I didn't care, Resembool is such a small town that once word got out that you were moving in with your Xingese wife most people didn't treat me that differently… but sometimes I would walk into one of the stores in town and the whispering would stop. I…"

"What?"

Mei shook her head. "No, Al, it's fine."

"Mei, tell me."

She pursed her lips. "I know for a fact that there was a nasty rumor going around that I was unfaithful to you, which is why Liwu doesn't look like you. One of the older women said that it wasn't that surprising since I am Xingese."

"Why didn't you tell me that?" Mei smiled at him affectionately.

"Because Al, I know you would have done something about it. And while I trust that you would have dealt with it much more tactfully that Ed would have, you didn't have to get involved. I didn't care. Except now that some of that seemed to have carried to Liwu."

"Do you think it'll happen?"

She pursed her lips again. "I don't know Al. I think that'll happen anywhere we go in Amestris. It hasn't been nearly long enough of positive relationships with Xing to get rid of feelings like that. You can't deny that people don't mistrust you here sometimes."

"Well… yes."

"I'm fine, Al. I'll have you and the children. It's them that I'm worried about."

"I'm not too worried about Nina," he responded. "She makes friends like breathing. She may not want to move now, but after a few months of going to school she'll already have a group of close friends. And Emily's too young to really understand what's happening. She'll be confused but she'll make friends as easily as any other child first going to school. It's Liwu that has me worried. He's so… cut off around people he doesn't know. And with this attitude he'll never make friends."

"I know… but there's not much we can do is there?"

Al sighed.

"Will you go talk to him?"

"Of course," Mei agreed instantly. "Go tuck Emily in."

"Okay."

* * *

The light was off in his room when Mei entered his room.

"I know you're still awake," she said, coming into the room and sitting down on the bed next to him.

"No, I'm not," he muttered into his pillow.

Mei smiled and stroked the hair on the back of his head. "You know, when we first moved to Amestris, to Resembool, I did not want to go."

He didn't respond, so she continued. "I love Xing. It's my home. It was the first time I had ever really moved outside of my country. I went to Amestris when I was a girl of course, and I traveled around the Easter countries with your father for a couple years, but I had only ever moved to the capitol where everyone was still Xingese."

"Yeah… so?"

"What I'm trying to tell you, Liwu, is that I understand. I know what you're going through. But I also know that I loved it in Resembool. And while I'll never consider it my home over Xing, I grew to love it as well. I liked living there. I'm just trying to say that… Central might not be too bad. You might come to like it."

"How can I?"

"I managed to make friends in Resembool. And you'll always have your family. We'll always be there for you. And who knows… you might end up meeting a girl you like there."

Liwu flushed red. Ever since beginning puberty, the boy couldn't even look at a girl who wasn't his sister without turning red.

Mei smiled and leaned down to kiss the top of his head. "We're not asking you to love the idea, Liwu, but we are asking that you don't hate us for making you move."

"But I don't want to leave Xing," he whimpered, rolling over to face her.

"I know," she responded, pulling him into a hug. "I know."

* * *

"This is where we live?" Emily asked, frowning.

"That's right, Em," Mei told her daughter before dropping her so she was on her feet. The four year old peered down the hall and crinkled her nose.

"It's cold."

"It'll warm up once we're more moved in," Al promised her, dropping some of the suitcases on the floor in the entrance way. Nina and Liwu shuffled in behind him dejectedly.

"What do you think?" he asked the, turning around.

"It's not bad…" Nina said, though the way she said it made it sound like she wasn't sure with her answer. Liwu didn't answer.

Ever since saying goodbye to his cousin with plenty of promises to call each other every day and Quyi always telling him all of his pranks and Liwu to tell Quyi everything that he was learning (the Prince didn't seem too upset when he learned that he wouldn't be able to continue alchemy lessons. He confessed that he took them more so that he could do something impressive that his siblings couldn't and he had learned enough to have done so) he hadn't said a word. Not the whole ride to Amestris or to Central.

"Well, that was a ringing endorsement," Al said after a few moments of quiet before clapping his hands. "Come on, offspring. Let's figure out whose rooms are whose."

* * *

"This is going to need some getting used to."

Al raised an eyebrow as he pulled his sleeping shirt over his head. "The house? Well, did you expect anything else—"

"No, the bed."

He raised an eyebrow and turned around. Mei was sitting on the bed bouncing up and down slightly.

"It's a different type of mattress than the one we have back home— at the other place," she clarified.

"Oh." He grinned slightly. "Well the best way to break in a new bed is to sleep on it," he proclaimed before jumping onto the bed and landing face first into the pillows. The action knocked Mei off the bed, and she got up off the floor only to hear him snoring loudly into the pillows.

"Al. Al!"

He lifted his face and grinned at her. "You're ridiculous."

"I love you too, Mei." She tried to keep an angry face on... but eventually had to smile and crawl under the blankets.

"I really do love you, though," he repeated facing her. "Thank you for allowing us to move here. I'm sure it won't be that bad."

"I hope so. I hope we love it here."

"So do I."

He kissed her once, before turning off the lights and crawling under the blankets with her.

Only to be woken up an hour or so later.

"Daddy?"

He blinked and opened his eyes to see his youngest daughter standing by his bed.

"Em?"

"I don't like my room," she half cried. "I can't sleep. Can I sleep with you?"

"What's going on?" Mei muttered, rolling over.

"Our daughter's going to be sleeping with us tonight," he told her, lifting Emily up and plopping her between the two of them.

"Oh. Alright."

Emily tucked her head against Al's chest and clung to his shirt. A few minutes later they were all once again asleep.

That is until there was the creak of their door being opened. Nina didn't bother asking if she could join her parents, perhaps fearing that she would be turned away, but crawled right in next to Al and snuggling up to his side.

"Nina?"

"… I couldn't sleep."

"… Well, I guess I get to sleep with all of my favorite girls tonight," he commented, grinning sleepily. Nina blushed slightly and Mei shoved him playfully.

A few minutes later, they were joined by someone who was not a girl though. Liwu entered the same way that Nina did, silently and hesitantly.

After a few stammered attempts at explaining himself and why he was here, Mei pulled him into the bed and under the covers.

"You don't… you don't mind?"

"I can't think of a better way to break in a new house."


	5. Verdict

**Okay I really do have to apologize for this chapter. It's really not all that AlMei-ish... and I really am sorry about that. This is an ALMEI story... but in my defense, this chapter puts something into motion that will be significant later in the story. And plus you can't really write a story about what happens after the series without mentioning something about this. So if you are really bugged by the fact there's not a lot of AlMei fluffs in the chapter, I AM sorry, but at the same time I hope you like it.**

* * *

"Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?"

"I do."

"Then please be seated."

Al sat down in the chair and squirmed slightly. Did the chair have to be so uncomfortable? Was that somehow supposed to convince the witness to tell the truth? Tell the truth and be released from the chair?

"Mr. Elric, you are currently the Ambassador to Xing, correct?" The defense lawyer was fairly tall, with dark hair and eyes that seemed to calculate everything down to the last twitch. He was supposedly one of the best lawyers in Amestris. He would have to be for this case. It was easily the biggest court case of the decade.

And Al was a witness.

"That is correct."

"And you were appointed by the late Fuhrer Grumman when he heard that you were planning on spending some time in Xing, correct?"

"Yes. I was traveling to Xing to learn more about alkahestry and was planning on staying at the palace. Fuhrer Grumman had heard that I was someone he could trust and appointed me to be an acting Ambassador until they could find someone else to fulfill the role. They never actually did."

"So after Fuhrer Grumman's retirement, you served as Ambassador under Fuhrer Mustang."

"Yes."

"For how many years?"

"Let's see… 18 years now."

Roy Mustang's defense lawyer whistled. "That's a long time."

"Yes, yes it is. I like to think it means I've done my job well."

"And during these 18 years, did Fuhrer Mustang ever express the slightest desire in provoking a war with Xing?"

"No."

"Did he, in fact, help craft a treaty that would ensure the long lasting peace we enjoy at this very day with Xing?"

"Yes he did."

"And in your entire professional career did he ever express any ideas that would suggest inclination towards violent treatment of this nation's citizens?"

"No. Well. Only my brother, but Ed would always just threaten him right back." There were some light chuckles in the room. "Of course neither of them actually meant it."

"Yes of course. And did the Fuhrer ever, in any of your conversations, discuss the topic of the Ishvalan War of Extermination?"

"… Yes."

"And in these conversations, did the Fuhrer express any feelings of longing or fond reminiscence for the war?"

"No. Not in the slightest. He was haunted by the war."

"Did he ever attempt to hide from you the things that he did in Ishval?"

"He's never lied or denied his involvement in the war as a human weapon, no."

"I see. I'm done, Your Honor."

"I have no questions for the witness at this time," the prosecutor said, nodding at the judge, who nodded.

"Very well, Ambassador Elric, you may step down."

Al did so, joining Ed in the crowd watching the trial. It had been going on for a week now and there hadn't been any verdict. Both lawyers kept providing more evidence, calling more people to the stand. Ed had been called as a witness yesterday, Al today. Every single member of "Team Mustang" had been called, along with Riza and Chris. It seemed like everyone from the man who brought him his coffee to his deceased grandmother was being called to the stand.

True to Mustang's predictions, and plans, one of the first actions the new democratic government did was to bring Ishvalan war criminals to trial. They had made their way through several of the soldiers already, the punishments for the average solider mostly forgiving. There had been a few prison sentences, among them the sniper Riza Hawkeye.

Her trial had lasted almost three days to itself. The defense and prosecution had bandied about over orders and body counts and lives saved and the danger that she possessed to the country today verses the time she had spent protected it… until the jury finally sentenced her to life imprisonment. She was given generous visiting hours in the name of her 17 year old son.

After trying the First Lady, they began the State Alchemists. There were so few left though, killed in action, killed by Scar, or already imprisoned, that there were only two of them left to be tried. Armstrong was let off since he deserted and had since served faithfully and honorably.

Then there was Roy.

The Flame Alchemist, Hero of Ishval (Twice), and former Fuhrer.

It seemed like the strategy that the prosecution seemed to be taking was describing the inhumanities of his actions in Ishval. Even in wartime, they were cruel and unusual. The lawyer had called in experts on burns and even Ishvalans that had been burned in his attacks. Some of them were gruesome. One man almost didn't have a face. Other witnesses lost family or friends to the fire.

Roy always looked each of them straight in the eye, and Al knew that apology and self-loathing was tattooed in those eyes.

Then the defense would pull witnesses describing the efforts that he had gone to to rebuild Ishval. Witnesses describing his determination to make the country better, a world where something like that would never happen again.

The prosecution would present evidence of the danger he posed to the country if left free.

The defense would present evidence on how much safer it would be free. Maria Ross had almost an entire day to herself trying explain that Roy didn't kill her because he thought that she killed Hughes but in fact only pretended to kill her to save her life because he knew she was innocent.

Ed testified for how hard he had worked to make the country better. Chris testified that he had always been a loyal father and he had heard his father wake up in the middle of the night after having nightmares about Ishval. Other Ishvalans that had come to know Roy while he was rebuilding it spoke about his remorse for the entire war.

Then finally, the sentence.

Life imprisonment.

His actions were too heinous to be allowed to walk free, but his attempt to fix his mistakes saved him from death. He would be given the same visitation rights as his wife, seeing his son and wife for a few hours every Saturday.

As the man was led away from the courtroom to his prison cell, where he would spend most of the rest of his life… Al didn't think he had ever seen Roy Mustang look so… free.

* * *

"Alphonse, I wasn't expecting you!"

"Hello, Mrs. Hughes. I'm actually here to see Chris… I wanted to check up on him after yesterday."

"Oh." Gracia's face fell. As the boy's god-mother, she had custody over him until he was an adult in a year. "He's understandably upset. I think it's horrible, but… at least he still gets to see them. They aren't being executed, thank goodness."

"Yes… I know they both expected that."

Gracia shook her head. "It would be more of a crime to execute them after all they've done than anything they might have done in Ishval. I know Maes would agree." She glanced over to the mantle where there was still a picture of her husband squeezing his three year old tightly. "He loved Roy like a brother. He used to tell me all the time that Roy was never going to forgive himself for what he did. And then I'd ask him if he, Maes, if he would forgive himself. And he answered… smiled and told me he wouldn't have married me if he knew he didn't think he'd be able to move past it."

She smiled herself and shook her head. "But anyways, Chris is in his room. Second door on the right."

"Thank you."

Al knocked on the door when he reached it before opening it. Chris lay on his bed with a dismantled gun on his flat stomach. His black hair was spread all around him on the pillow, not long enough to put in a braid or ponytail, but long enough that Gracia had probably told him to cut it several times already. His black eyes looked up when Al entered.

"Ambassador Elric?" His voice was a lot deeper than it was last time Al had talked to him when he was 12. Though he had admittedly seen quite a few pictures of him in the meantime.

"Hey, Chris," Al said nervously.

Chris directed his attention once again to the pistol. "Have a seat."

Al sat down on the end of the bed stiffly. "Thanks."

They sat in silence for a moment before anyone said anything.

"Mom said this was supposed to relieve stress." He gestured at the gun. "It's not working."

"It probably worked for her," Al said, cracking a nervous smile. Chris didn't seem amused.

"Care to time me, Ambassador?" he asked in a would-be casual voice. Al shrugged and held his hand out for the pocket watch Chris handed to him. He paused once it was in his hand, however. He ran a finger over the familiar insignia. "This is your father's, isn't it?"

"Yeah. Dad gave it to me right before they chucked him in jail to rot."

Al popped the pocket watch open and ran his finger over the smooth inside cover of the watch.

"The inside is smooth."

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well, the last time I held one of these it was my brothers. Uncle Ed was the—"

"Fullmetal Alchemist, yeah, I know."

"Ex," Al corrected gently.

"Right. Ex."

"On my brother's pocket watch, he engraved 'Don't Forget October 3rd' on the cover."

"A date?"

"A special date." Chris looked absolutely confused and Al smiled gently and closed the pocket watch lid. "How much of our story do you know, Chris?"

"Your story? The one about you being in the suit of armor?" Al nodded. "Not much. You and Uncle Ed performed human transmutation. You lost your whole body and got your soul attached to a suit of armor and he lost his arm and leg."

"Close enough. You see, our father left us when we were very young—" Chris winced and Al just smiled again. "Don't feel bad, I long got over it. But our father left us and we were raised almost completely by our mother. And then she became very ill and died. We were both heartbroken of course. Granny Pinako, Aunt Winry's grandmother, stepped forward as our guardian and raised us until we became apprentices to our alchemy teacher. She had no idea that we were planning on trying to bring out mother back to life, or she never would have taken us on. But that was what we were planning, and when we were done, we came home and tried it that night."

"But that Taboo is impossible."

"We didn't care. We thought we were cleverer than that, that we had figured it out. And we suffered because of it. The Gate took my whole body and Ed's leg—"

"What do you mean the Gate took your body?" Al couldn't help his eyebrows from raising slightly.

"Your father never told you about the Gate?"

"No."

"Hmm. No I guess he wouldn't have. The Gate is something that we all have inside us." Al put a hand on his chest and noted Christ looking down at his own. "It is, in a sense, what allows us to do alchemy. Imagine a great white expanse… and that's it. Just white everywhere."

"Nothing else?"

"Just two other things. A giant slab of grey rock extending up behind you and the Gate's… guardian, I supposed. He's nothing more than a white figure with a smile and calls himself Truth. When you perform human transmutation, it's not like a normal transmutation as you can imagine. There is nothing equivalent to the price it would take to bring a human soul back from the dead. And the price of attempting it is severe. Most people die. I almost did. If Ed hadn't sacrificed his arm to attach my soul to a suit of armor in the corner of the room, I would have been dead."

"But he did."

"Well, I'm sitting here on the edge of your bed, aren't I?" The corner of Chris's mouth twitched up slightly and he finally sat up all the way.

"You can't imagine how devastated we were. You know the taboo is impossible, but we didn't. Nothing had gone right at all. Ed found himself all alone, me gone, dead, and all he had gotten out of it was a deformed corpse. It was completely charred black, the organs were exposed in plain sight, the arms and leg bent at impossible angles—" Chris looked almost sick, but Al knew he had to continue. This wasn't something he could go easy on. He had to make his point.

"We had traded everything for something nonhuman. The three seconds it lived, I was inside it. My body was taken by the Gate and my soul entered what we had created until it, I, died. That was when Ed sacrificed his arm to attach my soul.

"You have to remember, Chris, I was ten years old. I was the same age Nina is now. And all of a sudden, I'm seven feet tall. Everything I touch I'm afraid of crushing. I can't feel when someone touches me. I can't feel cold, I can't feel hot, I can't eat, I can't smell. I can't sleep or dream… but I still have nightmares. Everything seemed like a nightmare for weeks."

"What happened?"

Al smirked. "Your dad, actually. He had heard rumors about a great alchemist in the small town of Resembool and wanted to offer to let us join the Sate Alchemist program. He had no idea that we were just kids, he thought we were full adults. But he first arrived at our house and saw what we had created. He knew exactly what we had done and stormed over to Granny's house, where we were recovering. He told Ed about the State Alchemist program and the opportunities it would give us to get back onto our feet. Ed took him up on the offer. He got automail surgery for his arm and leg and we went to work recovering. After a year, he left for Central where he had the exam and he passed.

"Ed returned the youngest State Alchemist ever. And we left home." His hand tightened around the watch. "To show our resolve and our determination that we would never give up on the road to get our bodies back no matter what, we burned down our house. That was October 3rd."

"Why would he engrave that on the inside of his pocket watch?"

"I only found out that he had put that in there years after the Promised Day. He kept it alchemized shut whenever he wasn't using it and I never wanted to pry. Ed put that in his watch as a reminder to himself of what we had done. A reminder of our sin, what we had done, and of our resolve to never go back.

"For him, I think it became a bit of a burden that he felt he was forced to carry around. Ed always blamed himself for what we had done, because initially I didn't want to do it. He felt like he was the one who convinced me so it was really all his fault." Al shook his head.

"I was alongside with him, performing the sin just as much as he was. But he felt like it was mostly his fault and the only way he could ever atone was to get our bodies back. Maybe, maybe then, he could feel as if he had managed to set things straight. October third became a symbol of that to him.

"You know most of the rest of the story. We traveled for years, trying to find a way to get out bodies back. We eventually discovered what a Philosopher's Stone really was, and then we discovered the homunculus' plans. We fought in the Promised Day, and I sacrificed my soul for Ed's arm so that he could win the battle. Then he sacrificed his Gate to bring my body and soul back from the Gate."

"That's why he stopped doing alchemy."

"Exactly. He literally can't. And he's okay with that. I told you that I didn't find out about the engraving until years later, and that was one of the happiest days of my life when he showed me. Because when I looked at that pocket watch and the look in Ed's eyes… I knew that we had finally managed to move past it. The charred ashes of our house are still there… but do you know what? There are flowers growing there now. We had finally managed to forgive each other and ourselves for what we had done and continue on with life."

Al opened the lid of the pocket watch once more and ran his finger over the lid.

"You know what your father did in Ishval."

"… yeah. I do. But that was orders, it wasn't his fault, he's regretted it ever since! He regretted it then! With everything he's done for this country it isn't fair! He shouldn't be… going along with it."

"Chris," he said as gently as he could. "Your father may have never engraved anything in his pocket watch, but I can promise you that he carried the memory of those sins around with him just like Ed did. There is only one atonement in their minds. For Ed it was getting our bodies back. For your father, it's exactly what he's doing now. What he's done for this country and turning himself in now is the only forgiveness he feels can be equivalent to the lives he took." Al closed the lid and held the pocket watch out to Chris, who hesitated but eventually grabbed it.

"This is his way of wiping the pocket watch clean, if that metaphor makes sense."

There was silence as Chris ran his own fingers over the surface of the pocket watch.

"He wouldn't give me a blood stained watch," Chris said eventually. "Not unless… not unless he thought the blood had been paid for."

"Exactly."

Silence reigned once again before Al clapped him on the shoulder and stood up. "Well, I have to be on my way. I promised Mei I would make dinner tonight."

"Are you making pasta?"

"No, a dish from the East. Why do you ask?"

"Whenever Mom made Dad cook, he would make pasta." Al smirked before an idea occurred to him.

"Do you want to join us? We have an extra chair and I'm sure we could rustle up an extra plate." Chris paused, thinking about it. "My quiche isn't as good as Gracia's though, I'm afraid."

"No one's quiche is as good as Aunt Gracia's."

"Too true, my friend. Too true."

"… Aunt Gracia!"

"Yes, Chris?"

"I'm going to the Elrics for dinner tonight! I'll be home around nine."


	6. Complexes

**I SURVIVED GUYS! I AM ALIVE! YAY!**

**I wish I had had more time to set this chapter up so it didn't seem as out of the blue. I've done my best to set it up throughout the chapters but... ya'll be the judge.**

* * *

"That's really quite amazing, Liwu," Al said, grinning at his son's handiwork. The sculpture was the exactly five feet two inches and was a stunning likeness of the boy's mother when she was angry.

The boy grinned back. "Thanks."

"You missed something though."

The grin melted away. "What? What was it?"

"Her mouth's closed."

"Why is that a problem?"

"Usually by the time she's uncrossed her arms, she's about to start yelling."

Liwu laughed along with his father before glancing at the book he had used to draw the circle and making a slight adjustment in his circle and activating the circle again.

Instead of adjusting the sculpture so that her mouth fell open as if she were about to yell at him to do his laundry, though, the sculpture exploded, blasting both Al and Liwu backwards.

Al coughed a few times before glancing at where the sculpture had stood. There was a black mark on the ground where it had stood left from the explosion.

"Liwu?"

"I'm alright," the boy said, though he was coughing too. Then he swore.

"Liwu!"

"Sorry, Dad. What happened? Why didn't it work? What did I do wrong?"

Al got to his feet and examined the adjustment he had made to the circle. "You accidently disturbed the carbon ratio when you messed with the design."

"I did?"

"Come look," Al said, gesturing for him to come closer. He did so, looking upset and brushing the front of his pants down. Even though the boy had taken to wearing slacks at school to try and fit in a little better (though from what Al understood, his son hadn't made any friends yet) he still wore Xingese clothes around the house more often.

"See? You must have accidently brushed it away."

"Really? Something that stupid?"

"In alchemy every tiniest detail counts. You should know that by now, Liwu."

"Yeah I know," he grumbled before crossing his arms and looking away.

"Hey, it was just a mistake. Everyone makes them. It's okay."

"Yeah I know but… it's been three years. Shouldn't I be able to do something as simple as that by now? I understand it, I know how to do it but it just isn't coming. I still need to look at book to draw complex circles… even Emily isn't using the book anymore."

"You can already do a lot, Liwu. You can't compare yourself to your sister, it just comes naturally to her. Some people are like that."

"You're like that. So is Uncle Ed."

"Well, yes. But we didn't just magically become perfect at alchemy. We had to work on it. Your Uncle Ed and I were obsessed with alchemy when we were kids, we didn't do anything except learn about it. It's not surprising you're not learning as fast as we did."

"But Emily is."

"I… yes well she's also started younger. It's easier for younger kids to pick it up now and then get better as they understand more complex theories. She never had to struggle with building that foundation in it."

"Or I'm just not as good as her."

"No, Liwu it's not that. It's just…" Al bit his lip before taking the plunge. "Well I warned you when I said I would teach you alchemy that some people just… have trouble picking it up…" A lot of people actually. There was a reason alchemists were so valuable. Because they were so rare. Very few people were ever actually able to pick the art up. It didn't help that most alchemists refused to take on people as pupils.

While he thought that this might comfort his son, that there wasn't anything wrong with him for not being a natural at alchemy, it seemed to do the opposite. His head shot upwards and locked eyes with Al's. "I'm not one of them! I can pick it up, I swear!"

"Liwu I told at the beginning of this that I would stop teaching you if I thought that you were going to hurt yourself trying too hard."

"No! Don't stop teaching me, please." His dark eyes were wide and pleading. "Please Dad."

"I'm not going to stop… but if you don't forgive yourself for not being a natural I might. It's perfectly normal not to be able to do alchemy well, Liwu." Liwu didn't respond, having looked away. Al waited for a few seconds to see if that would prompt a response, but he didn't say anything.

"Well… come on. Let's wash up and help your mother with dinner. Chris is coming over for dinner tonight."

Liwu did lighten up a bit at that. Liwu had taken quite a liking to the older boy that had taken to frequenting the family meals. He came over every few days. Al suspected that it was because he didn't like the loneliness of being at Gracia's. Considering Elicia was already married with her own family (Al had been thunderstruck when he heard that) it was just him and her alone in the house. And she had taken on so many projects to fill her time when Elicia had gotten married and left that he was probably home alone most days.

So eating dinner with them with three kids all with distinct personality… it was probably a nice break from the silence.

It had taken a while for Liwu to adjust to having this new presence in their home (and Al was happy to see that it was becoming a home instead of a place that he was forced to move to), but once he had opened up around Chris they started down the path of becoming friends. Al wasn't quite sure how the friendship worked considering Chris was five years older than his son, but Chris didn't seem to mind having the young boy attach himself to him and Al didn't mind his son using Chris as an almost role model. There were a lot worse people to model yourself on.

Though he wasn't quite sure as far as Liwu perhaps planning on following in Chris's footsteps joining the military when he turned 18.

They entered the back door and stopped in the bathroom to wash their hands before joining Mei and Nina in the kitchen. Nina was already working on setting the table for six and Mei was waiting for something to finish boiling.

"We almost ready for him?"

"Dinner will be ready any moment now."

"Okay," Al said, smiling and moving to help Nina with setting the table. "Where's Emily?"

"I think she's trying to find Cookie." The cat had moved with them to Amestris, though reluctantly. Thankfully she seemed to have taken to their new house well enough.

"As long as she's here for dinner."

The doorbell rang and Liwu offered to go get it.

By the time Nina and Al laid the last of the silverware, the two boys came back, Chris smiling sheepishly. "Sorry for intruding again, Uncle Al."

"Absolutely not a problem," he said smiling. "Right Mei?"

"We're happy to have you over," she said carrying a pan of casserole into the dining room and putting it on the table. "And we're happy to eat, so let's all sit down, shall we? Liwu, go find your sister."

"She's right there," he said, pointing at Nina. Everyone except Mei chuckled or laughed while she just raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, of course, Mom."

Emily came in the room trailing her brother a few minutes later talking about how she had found Cookie under the bed and trying to get Cookie back out from under the bed because she didn't belong under the bed… they all laughed and teased her a bit.

Even though it was a thoroughly enjoyable evening, Al couldn't help but notice that Liwu seemed more subdued during dinner. So after goodnights and hugs and kisses as Al brushed his wife's hair, he couldn't help but explain his concerns to her.

She confessed that she had noticed it too.

"I just can't help but feel like his heart isn't really in it."

"Then why would he want to keep learning?"

"I don't know… I keep feeling like he's not learning for himself. He's trying hard. He's working incredibly hard, and I can tell that the fact that he'd not quite getting it bothers him deeply. But I can't understand why. I've told him enough that that's natural. A lot of people are rubbish at alchemy."

"Well he had grown up in our family. You're a brilliant alchemist. I'm an alkahestrist—"

"You're a brilliant alkahestrist too." She smiled at him.

"Fine. I'm a brilliant alkahestrist. Ed's a famous alchemist. All of us learned at incredibly young ages. Maybe he feels like he needs to learn alchemy to fit in."

"But we've never said anything like that!"

"I know, Al. But… you know Liwu's always been… uncomfortable with the fact that he's adopted. Ever since he learned about his adoption he's felt like he needs to prove that he's a part of the family."

"Of course he's a part of the family! We love him just as much as Nina and Emily."

"I know that Al. He's my baby just as much as Emily. And we've never treated him as if he's any less for being adopted, but he's sensitive. And maybe learning alchemy is his way of trying to prove to you that he is your son."

Al's shoulder's sagged. "But… he doesn't have to… what do I do?"

"I don't know Al. Trying to stop his lessons might make it worse."

"But he's going to drive himself crazy trying to learn something he doesn't care about. No good comes when someone does that."

Mei pursed her lips before rubbing her hands across his shoulders comfortingly. "Come on. Sleep on it. Maybe you'll come up with an idea in the morning."

He sighed. "Alright."

He climbed into bed while Mei turned off the light, crawling into bed herself and tucking her head against his chest.

Nina crept away from the door as quietly as she could.

* * *

"Did you know that Sarah didn't know you spoke Amestrian?" Nina informed her brother when she met him outside of the school.

"What?"

"She didn't think you spoke any Amestrian at all. She thought you only knew how to speak Xingese."

"I speak Amestrian fine," he said frowning.

"Well I know that," she said, walking quickly to keep up with his longer legs as they started walking home. "But she didn't. So I told her that she was an ignorant, biased idiot!"

"Nina—!"

"But I told her in Xingese so she didn't know what I said! And now she wants me to teach her how to speak it."

"That wasn't very nice, Nina." The blond shrugged before running ahead to snag a dandelion that was growing from the grass of a nearby lawn.

"Neither were the things she said about Xingese people. So I had to tell her off for messing with my people."

Liwu raised an eyebrow. "But you're not Xingese. You're Amestrian."

"No I'm not. I'm just as Xingese as you are."

"… Nina…"

"And you're just as Amestrian as I am."

"No," he said slowly as if explaining something to a stupid child. "I'm Xingese because my biological parents were Xingese. Your biological parents were Amestrian."

"So?"

"What do you mean so? It's genetics!"

"I mean so what? Who cares? I'm half Xingese and you're half Amestrian because we have one mom who's Xingese and a dad who's Amestrian. We've lived in both countries and we speak both languages. We know both cultures."

"But Nina we're both adopted. We're not actually Mom and Dad's kids, so we aren't—"

"Yes we are."

"What?"

"Yeah we're actually Mom and Dad's kids. We're sure not whoever our real parents's are kids." She stopped momentarily to check the grammatical correctness of that sentence before shaking her head and continuing. "My parents left me alone in an ally. If I wasn't found I would have died. Family doesn't do that to each other. So they're not my family. Mom and Dad and Emily are my family even if I'm not biologically related to any of you. And you're my family too. You're Mom and Dad's family too."

"I… well I know but…"

"You sure don't seem to know."

"What do you mean?"

"You don't even like alchemy."

His jaw dropped and he spluttered for a few minutes as Nina skipped ahead to pick more flowers.

"I like alchemy!"

"No you don't," she said turning around and giving him a look quite reminiscent of her mother. "Now will you stop pretending you do just so you can try to earn the love that Dad's already giving you and more?"

"That's not why I'm doing it…"

"Then why are you?"

He opened his mouth to answer… and then it fell shut.

"Exactly," she said, nodding briskly and running to the door of their house, which they had just approached.

Liwu stood there staring at the door which had been left open as Nina ran inside and announced her arrival to the house.

He went straight to his room and stared working on his homework, but couldn't really focus.

When he heard his father's arrival, he stood up and went to the hall to greet him.

"Hey, Liwu," Al said, grinning with Emily in his arms. "How was your day?"

Liwu looked at Nina who had also come to welcome her father home. Her father. Liwu's father. "It was… pretty good. Though… um… about you teaching me alchemy…"


	7. Scaring Experiences

Nina Elric was pretty happy with the way things had worked out with her new school. When she had first been told that she would have to move, she was devastated. She couldn't imagine a world where she wouldn't be able to go to school with Riza. Riza was her best friend. She didn't think she'd ever be able to make a friend that wasn't Riza.

Thankfully, that had proved to not be true. She had actually made more friends in Amestris than she had had back in Xing. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that she made friends with every person that she saw that didn't have a friend and acquired quite a large group of friends that didn't have them before she came along, but she still had quite a few friends. And some of them she even really liked. Katie was almost as good as a friend as Riza was and Rachel was one of the funniest people she had ever met.

So yes, Nina was happy at school.

Happy enough that she was so excited to be at school after summer she didn't even notice the new student in their class.

"Students," the teacher said. Her name was Ms. Brown, which was funny because her hair was actually red and up in a bun. She seemed really nice, but you never knew what a teacher was actually like on the first day. "I know you're excited to see your friends again, but we must settle down. Settle down."

Everyone eventually quieted down and took their seats.

"Now, we're all going to learn a lot this year so you should all be excited." The teacher continued to talk for a few more minutes about being excited for the new year and being that much older and learning so much and being nice to each other… Nina noticed some of the other kids in the class rolling their eyes. While she knew that was rather rude, she couldn't help but agree with them in her heart of hearts. They were all 12 years old. They weren't idiots; they knew how to behave in a classroom.

But then the teacher said something that immediately caught Nina's attention.

"This year we are also pleased to have a special addition to our class, Zhou. He's from Xing," she said, giving the class a look that Nina wasn't quite sure how to interpret. "Come on up, Zhou."

Her pronunciation wasn't bad Nina supposed. But it was far from correct. She straightened anyways, straightening her neck to look at the Xingese boy. He was her age, with the typical black hair and dark eyes. He was pretty skinny and moved slowly and awkwardly up to the front of the class.

"Zhou speaks very little Amestrian, but that shouldn't stop you from trying to be his friend. Zhou, will you say hello to the class?"

"Hello," he said. His voice was soft and accented. Some of the class tittered and the other half of the class hit the half that had tittered. The boy still turned red though.

"Class," Ms. Brown said sharply and the tittering all died down immediately. "Zhou, go back to your seat."

He did so, as he walked, looking around the class. When he locked eyes with Nina she gave him the widest grin she possibly could. He stared back as if afraid she was going to eat him.

Which wasn't that far from the truth to be perfectly honest. The very moment break was declared and everyone allowed to run around outside for a few minutes to work off pent up energy, Nina practically tackled the Xingese boy.

"So what Providence are you from," she asked in flawless Xingese, running up beside him as he made his way towards the corner of the grounds.

The poor boy jumped and then looked at her like she was an alien from another planet that had just asked him what Providence he was from.

"… I… excuse me?"

"What Providence are you from? Ms. Brown only said that you were from Xing, and she probably wouldn't be able to understand the structure with the clans anyways. Most people just can't wrap her head around the idea of a society so structured on ancestry and familial relations, which is really all the clans are. It goes back a long time, but eventually everyone in the same clan is related, don't you think? The clans used to be small families until they grew into tribes and then were converted to clans. But every time I try to explain that to my other teachers they never get it so I don't think I'll even try this year."

"… Excuse me?"

Nina giggled. "Oh come on, I'm speaking plain Xingese. If I was speaking Amestrian I wouldn't blame you for being so confused, but… oh… you didn't come from one of the south eastern clans did you? Oh you probably speak that one dialect don't you? Oh, I'm so sorry. My name is Nina," she finished, slowly.

"What? No, I'm from the Yu clan. It's located in the heart of Xing I am just… very confused. How… how do you know Xingese?"

"Well I was only raised there," she said with a smile. "You would learn a language pretty well if it was your home from the time you were three to ten. We also speak it pretty frequently in my home. It's hard for us to stay in one language to be honest! Dad's been speaking it for so long it's as if he grew up with both of them, and of course my siblings and I did grow up with it… It's really funny when someone visits and we'll accidently slip into another language. Liwu and I are pretty good at not doing that though. Emily's the worst. She's young enough that it's hard to differentiate sometimes and a lot of the time we won't even realize she's changed languages cause we'll just start speaking whatever she is…"

"I.."

"I'm sorry, am I talking too much? People tell me I'm a bit overwhelming, I'm sorry. So your name's Zhou?"

"Uh… yes. My name is Zhou Yu."

"Oh, so you're related to the clan leaders?"

"I am the son of the third son. My grandfather was a clan leader."

"That's cool. I'm the daughter of the daughter of the first daughter."

He mouthed the words to himself, as if trying to make sense of a foreign language. "Wait… daughter of the daughter of the first daughter… you mean you're the daughter of a princess?"

"Princess Mei Chang," Nina responded, nodding. "It's really not that big of a thing… Oh no please! You don't have to bow!"

"But… I am standing before the Emperor's granddaughter."

"If it makes you feel better about it, I'm adopted, so I'm not really the daughter of the daughter of the first daughter, or granddaughter of the Emperor. I don't even know who my biological parents are. But I consider my adoptive parents my parents through and through. Not the great granddaughter of the Morning Star, though."

He straightened hesitantly. "So why did you come here to Amestris? Either way if you were worried about being the only Xingese person here, my brother's Xingese so you not only know someone who speaks Xingese, but someone who actually is Xingese! I bet we'll all become really close friends. Liwu's always loved Xing more than Amestris, even though he likes it here a lot more than he thought he would. So he'll love talking to you! And I've never visited the Yu clan, so I'll want to hear as much about that as I can!"

"… Uh-huh…"

She grinned widely at him.

"Don't you just think we're going to be the best of friends? You never answered my question."

"Uh… I… my father decided that he didn't want to wait for my two elder Uncles to die and pursue a career here in Amestris. He's interested in starting a business."

"Well that's really cool! So you're planning on moving here for good for good instead of just visiting or only living here for a year or so?"

"Well… yes, that's the plan."

"That's great," she said, grinning widely. "It'll be nice to have a friend here at school who understands Xing. I've always felt sort of left out because everyone I know here has only ever lived in Amestris and they don't know anything else. Most of them have never even lived outside of Central. It was a real shock coming here from Xing. I wish I had had a friend to help me adjust when I came here."

"What do you mean you feel left out?" he asked, frowning. "You have so many friends."

"Oh, well. I have friends. And they're great friends! But they don't really understand what it was like for me, growing up. Only Liwu really does. And while you obviously can understand completely because different houses, different parents and all, you know what it's like in Xing… Have you ever gone to the Capitol?"

"I've been there a few times." He still looked overwhelmed, but seemed to be getting the hang of talking to her. "One for a New Year's Celebration and once for the Prince's birthday…" He paused. "You would be cousins with the Princes wouldn't you? Your Uncle is the Emperor!"

"Yeah… Uncle Ling's really funny actually. You'd think he'd be all serious and somber and scary but he's actually really funny and weird. Unless you get him mad. Then he's scary. Kinda like Aunt Lan Fan. Though she's not really funny. But she can be really nice. Except when you get her mad. Then she's a lot scarier than Uncle Ling. And Jun-li's really nice, but he's not really social. He doesn't like people or parties. But Fu is really good at talking to people. And Quyi is a jerk."

"… Prince Quyi is a jerk?"

She frowned. "Well… okay so he's not a jerk. But he's a jerk to me. He's best friends with my brother and didn't like playing with me as well. He's gotten better at not being a jerk but he mostly ignores me for Liwu."

"Oh…"

A bell rang and Nina looked around before grabbing onto the Xingese boy's hand. "Come on, class is about to start again," she told him, dragging him towards the schoolhouse. "And then after school we can walk home together and you can meet Liwu and Nina!"

* * *

Mei Chang had grown up in a world where there was no real… stopping. There was very little peace, very little boredom (aside from her pregnancy with Emily which was close to pure torture), and never a chance to let down her guard. Even since she was able to understand what people were telling her she was told that she must always, always, always be on her guard. She would always have to be prepared for the chance of an assassination attempt. She would always have to be learning one more thing that would help her get the throne. She would always have to be practicing alkahestry to make sure that she would be safe.

Once she came back from Amestris she had to worry about assassination attempts even more because she named heir to the throne. Then she was working on the railroads and dealing with politics. Then she was absorbed with being with Al and traveling around the East and then helping him recover and then getting married and more politics and then children. She continued to work on various projects while rearing children, but they would take the backburner to making sure he children because respectable human beings in society.

And now her youngest, Emily, was as school and she suddenly found herself with more time than she knew what to do with anymore.

She could work on this project but… or that one but… of course then she should probably work on that.

So because she couldn't figure out which project to work on she didn't end up working on anything.

Then the door opened. Mei blushed slightly, thinking that it was Liwu and Nina coming home and they would discover that their mother had completed essentially nothing while they had been at school and what sort of example was that just sitting about—

"Mei?"

"Al?" she asked, getting off the couch and walking around the corner of the hall to discover her husband standing there. "What are you doing here?"

"We finished early because it's Prime Minister Bryan's anniversary with his wife, and he told us to take our wives out on a date."

"What?"

"He told us to take our wives out on a date. Do you want to go out for lunch? Or maybe we could go dancing? I know we could find a place somewhere here in Central… what?" he asked, raising an eyebrow at her wide grin.

"Nothing."

"No, what is it?"

"I just… I love you. Let's go out to lunch. The kids won't be home for another hour or so."

"Okay, let's go. And maybe we'll even get dessert," he said, wiggling his eyebrows.

"You rebellious man, you. Dessert! Perish the thought."

He grinned and pulled her out the door.

* * *

"And he completely believed me when I told him that I only ate fish on the full moon."

Al laughed out loud and Mei chuckled along with him at the memory. "He's going to be convinced the Xingese are odd, Mei."

"Odd? We're odd? You're odd!"

"How could you say that? I'm practically a full blooded Xingeseman by now. I am a citizen after all. I've lived there long enough."

"You'll be a full blooded Xingeseman when Ed lets Sara dress in some of Winry's old outfits and do cartwheels in the middle of Central Command."

Al roared with laughed and Mei grinned. There had been quite a row at the Elric house a few months ago when Ed had found out that Sara had not only been dating a boy secretly for the past eight months and that Winry knew… but that the boy has proposed to her.

And she had said yes.

Then the door opened and their children walked in.

"Dad. What are you doing home?" Liwu asked, blinking.

"My meeting finished earlier. I just finished taking your mother out on a date."

"A date? But you're both old," Nina said, her nose wrinkling. Al raised an eyebrow.

"We're too old to date?"

"Yeah."

"Oh. Well are we too old to do this?" he asked, before pulling Mie towards him and kissing her, wrapping his arms around her waist while she did the same for his neck.

Nina started making gagging noises and Liwu turned slightly red.

Emily's reaction was by far both Al and Mei's favorite though. A high pitched squeal of "EWWWWW!"

* * *

**Zhou = hit by a steam roller of words and energy known as Nina Elric**

**Emily = freaked out by her parents kissing**

**Al and Mei = cutest couple ever**

**So I went to Prom yesterday (it was at a museum. Which was awesome. And I went Stag so I didn't have to bother sticking with a date the whole time) and I went with a group that left at 4 for dinner and then making it down to the museum and then I didn't get home till 12. And On Friday I went to the play that a friend of the family was in (fanciest, highest quality middle school play I've ever been to) and my brother had a party at my house that didn't end till 1:00 on Friday night and I went to my Grandma's tonight. Busy weekend, right? Yeah, pretty busy but nothing I can't handle... until my teachers decide to assign all of my homework for this weekend. Chem lab, huge APUSH packet, 5 essays that he told us we would only have to have ready by Tuesday when NOPE. Monday. SDFGHJKJHGFDFHJLKJHGFDGFHKJLKJGFDDFJKM. *deep breaths, deep breath. Buddah pose***

**Ya'll are lucky I love you and decided to update this even though I probably shouldn't have.**

**And well, I really wanted to write this chapter. I love writing overenthusiastic Nina.**

**Anyways, please review!**


	8. Positions

**So this chapter ended up being a lloooooottttt longer than I thought it would be. When I started writing it I was thinking that it'd be a fairly normal sized easy to write chapter so I didn't matter that I spend time working on next weeks chapter or reading other fics because it wouldn't be that hard to finish up... but then it was almost midnight, I was 3000 words in and still not close to resolving the chapter... yeah... so... It's a good thing it's Spring Break this week for me though because I could managed to finish it this morning! **

**Also, I mention something in this chapter that's a flashback to a chapter from GFTS so I went and reread that chapter... and wow. Let me tell you wow. In that chapter, Benny (EdWin's oldest) was four. At this point in the story, during this chapter... he's 22. That also prompted me to do that math. GFTS covered a span of about 4 years. ASOH covered about 14. RFD is going to cover 43.**

**... yeah. It also has the least amount of chapters. But the longest chapters per capita by far. **

* * *

Liwu was understandably confused when he picked up the phone and the first words he heard were:

"The whole world has gone nuts."

He had had a rather uneventful day. Well, he supposed that his days had ceased to be truly uneventful ever since he managed to make some friends at school, Simon and Oliver Capria (a pair of twins) and Luke Ronan, who he was pretty sure were partially insane.

He hadn't done anything purposefully to befriend them, he had only noticed that Simon had to do a report on Amestrian-Xingese relations and offered to let him talk to his dad. There really wasn't anyone better to go to research about that. Not only was Alphonse Elric the current Ambassador and had been Ambassador for 20 years, but the research that he had done for the Elric Treaty had been so expansive, he literally knew more than any other person alive.

They had set up plans for Simon to come over and talk to Al sometimes, only Simon had invited his twin Oliver to come over as well. Then Liwu had spent the next few days at school trying to help Simon make sense of the notes and thereby met their friend Luke. By the time Simon handed in the paper and Liwu went back to eating lunch in his deserted corner of the grounds, the other three tracked him down and dragged him to where they ate lunch.

So since then his days had been far from uneventful, but it had been an ordinary day. Until this phone call.

"Excuse me?"

"The whole world's gone nuts. I'm going to die. This is it. This is the end. World's ending."

"… Quyi?"

"Who else would call you talking in rapid Xingese?"

"Zhou. Uncle Ling—"

"Wait, wait, wait. Who's Zhou?"

"One of Nina's friends. He moved here from Xing last year and Nina adopted him because she was the only person in her grade that spoke Xingese. I've told you about him before."

There was brief silence before recognition. "Oh. One of Nina's… "_friends_"," Quyi commented, and Liwu had to snort as his friend's insinuation.

"Nah, they're honestly just friends. Nina treats him more like a brother than anything like that."

"Oh. I wanted to tease her mercilessly."

"You can tease her about Johnathan Kenny. She has a huge crush on him."

"Jonathan Kenny? I'll keep that in mind. But that's not important right now, the world's ending!"

"How much money to you owe Vien?"

"No, it's not money this time!"

"How many favors then?"

"What? No, that's not what I mean, it's not Vien."

"Then what did you do to make Uncle Ling mad?"

"No, it's not him either! It's—"

"Did Prince Han finally send assassins after you?"

"He's been doing that for years. No, you don't understand."

"Then what?"

"Fu challenged Jun-li for the throne."

Liwu froze, phone clutched in his hand before pulling away and staring at it.

"What?"

"Fu challenged Jun-li for the throne."

"… can he do that?"

"I don't even know! That's the problem! Fu just marched into the throne room yesterday in the middle of court today and announced that he deserved the throne and it was his intention to challenge Jun-li for the right to rule. The whole palace has been in an uproar ever since! Dad started freaking out and Jun-li looked like someone who had been told they were going to die! All the courtiers started yelling and screaming at each other and at Dad and Fu and Jun-li and Vien started collecting bets! It was a mad house! Mom and the other guards had to move in to calm things down. You have to get over here as soon as possible!"

"But we're in the middle of the school year—"

"This is a political crisis, Liwu! If Jun-li doesn't step down from his claim to the throne, we could have a civil war! I don't… I can't have my brothers fighting each other. They've always had the most strained relationship I can't… You have to come! It's more than just politics, it's family! Get on a train right now!"

Liwu didn't even bother hanging up the phone.

* * *

It was probably one of the longest train rides Mei had taken in her entire life.

She had had some pretty long train rides in her life.

The train ride to Amestris when Al had been injured in an assassination attempt and they were taking him to Amestris to heal had taken forever. She had spent the whole ride by Al's side, begging, praying and hoping that he would be alright.

Every train she had ever had to take moving away from her home lasted hours longer than it should have.

But this was easily one of the longest.

Liwu and Nina were entertaining Emily a few benches down, which she only halfheartedly watched. She was mostly just chewing her lip and worrying though.

She felt Al's fingers intertwine with hers. "Hey, what's wrong?"

Mei looked away, which only prompted Al to lean forward and turn her head so that she looked him in the eye.

"Hey… You're worried."

"I am."

"What are you worried about?" She pursed her lips.

"This whole situation. No one knows… it's just… there's so much… I'm worried for Xing, Al. I'm worried for Ling and his family. In my entire life, the only sibling I've ever managed to get along with is Ling. I have 43 siblings, Al. We grew up hating each other and trying to come up with ways to sabotage and kill each other for the throne. And now with Fu challenging Jun-li for the throne… I don't want that to happen to them. They're my nephews, I care about them. Both of them. And I don't want them to hate each other like I used to hate my siblings."

"Used to hate?"

"Well… I don't hate my siblings anymore. I just find most of them distasteful." He smirked before nuzzling her slightly.

"I'm sure everything will be fine. Despite what it may look like sometimes, Ling's got a good head on him. And Jun-li and Fu may not be as close as Ed and I were, but I'm sure they'll be fine. It'll work out."

Mei smiled and let him pull her into a hug.

"How do you always manage to make me feel better about everything?"

"I just have that calming influence," he said, rubbing her back.

"You do though," Mei mumbled into his chest. "You always have. No matter what stress or complicated problem I'm dealing with you're always there to reassure me that everything will work out in the end. That we'll be able to figure it out. It gets annoying sometimes…" They both chuckled slightly remembering one instant in particular when Mei had screamed at him for trying to make everything alright on a day that she had been particularly… hormonal. "But I really do love you for it."

"I would always want to make everything all right for you, Mei. Especially because when things are going well for you, they're going well for me."

She snorted and pulled away, pushing him playfully. "Selfish intentions, I see."

"Naturally, Princess. You mistake me to assume I'm a charming knight all the time. I would have thought you'd know that by now."

"I guess I haven't wanted to shatter the rosy glass," she responded.

"Mom? Are you and Dad being cute together again?" Nina asked from a few benches down. Both Al and Mei turned to see their children watching them.

"Take a lesson from your mother, Nina," Al said, grinning at his daughter, "And make sure to marry someone that you can be cute with when you're as old as we are. Especially with three little monstrosities like you three running around pretending to be offspring."

"Hey!"

"Hey!"

"Daddy!"

"Your father's right, though," Mei said, smiling at her children. "I want the best for you kids, but I think I already took the best man of them all so you'll have to squabble over what's left."

"Mom!"

"Yes, darling?"

"Ew!" Nina said pointedly. "It's _Dad_."

"You mean you aren't you glad I managed to find the most amazing man on the planet to be your father?"

"Well, yeah, I mean but… ew."

* * *

They could tell that things were tense the moment they got off the train. Businesses that would normally open were closed and there were not as many citizens out as there should be. They hurried to the palace, not bothering to stop anywhere or do anything. Liwu and Nina were both excited to be back in Xing, but Nina couldn't remember much of it herself and it wasn't much like the Xing they had left behind.

If possible, the mood at the palace was worse. It was if everyone had just discovered that the foundation of the building was made on eggshells instead of solid rock. Every single step made seemed like it would set something off that would send them all plunging horribly to their deaths.

The first smile brought to anyone's faces was when a Xingese boy came hurtling down the entrance steps towards them.

"You're here!" he shouted, quickly hugging his cousin and best friend. Quyi had changed in the past three years quite a bit, Mei had to admit. He had gotten taller, and some of the baby fat around his face had left, leaving it more angular. He was looking more and more like his father. It didn't help much that he was wearing his hair in a ponytail just like Ling used to when he was younger. Or that he was wearing an identical outfit, only the jacket was red and longer.

"What happened to your hair?" was the second thing out of the Prince's mouth, something that Mei heartily agreed with. While Mei loved Chris Mustang almost like a second son, she could not stand his hair. It was long enough that it was constantly in his eyes and needing to be cut, but short enough that it couldn't be pulled back in a ponytail or braid. She had been relieved when he had joined the military and they made him cut it short… but then Liwu decided that he needed to take up the hairstyle as well. She had honestly considered cutting his hair in the middle of the night while he was asleep multiple times.

"I grew it out? What about yours it's as long as Nina's." Quyi looked around and seemed to recognize that the rest of them where there.

"Oh. Hello. Hi, Aunt Mei. Uncle Al." He blinked. "… huh. Nina. And…" his eyebrows rose. "Emily? Wow you've gotten big. But I guess you're the same age as Vien huh so… Weird."

"What's going on, Quyi?" Al asked, taking the lead. "What's happened since you called?"

Quyi swallowed, his smile gone. "Not much. After the court meeting Dad tried to reason with Fu and tell him that it wasn't his place to claim the throne, that it went to Jun-li and Fu reasoned right back that he wasn't the oldest son either. They've gone back and forth like that a few times… but Jun-li hasn't said practically anything since the challenge. We're all worried, we don't know what this might mean.

"We don't even know if Fu can challenge Jun-li like that and what it entails if he is allowed. Dad started something completely unprecedented when he disbanded the Imperial Harem and married Mom and only Mom. We've all just assumed that the throne went to Jun-li since he's the oldest, but Fu does bring up a good point about the throne never automatically going to the oldest before. But does that mean that Dad just picks who the heir is? Or does he have to prove himself somehow? We're all clueless."

"Why did you want us to come so quickly?"

"Well… you guys are the closest family we have. And since this is a family crisis as much as a political one, we need our family here to support us."

Mei smiled at her nephews comment and hugged him, despite the fact that he blushed and pushed her away.

"Aw, Aunt Mei don't get mushy on me."

She smiled before looking up the stairs to where she saw Fu march down the hall. He caught sight of them, before his eyes widened slightly and he marched towards them.

"Fu," she said when he came close. Fu bowed before smiling tightly.

"Aunt Mei. It's nice to see you again. Why are you here?"

"We heard about… the challenge." His face darkened slightly.

"You didn't need to come all the way from Amestris for that."

"We're family, Fu," Al said. "We care about what's going on with you. We don't want anything… bad to happen."

He paused before his narrowed eyes changed into another tight smile. "Of course not."

Then he glanced at everyone else and looked surprised.

"Liwu?"

"Hey Fu…"

"You've shot up like a weed!" Fu proclaimed. "You're taller than I am!" Liwu smiled genuinely.

"Yeah. Dad keeps saying I get it from him." Fu smiled before moving on to Nina… and promptly raising an eyebrow.

"Since when did you become such an attractive young lady, cousin?" Nina smiled and tossed her braid over her shoulder.

"Why, thank you for noticing."

"And this can't be Emily, can it?" he asked, finally stopping at the youngest Elric. "You've gotten so big! Last time I saw you, you could hardly talk!"

"I can talk fine," she responded, raising her chin in a manner very reminiscent of her mother. Fu smiled and it looked like he was going to say something but then—

"Al? Mei?" Ling came hurrying down the steps before stopping when he noticed Fu there. "Fu."

Fu turned around stiffly. "Father."

Ling's eyes were hard to understand. They seemed hurt, but hard around the edges. Serious, but sad.

"Fu, your mother wanted to talk to you."

Fu didn't respond for a few moments before nodding and mounting the stairs.

There was a frigid silence as Fu passed him, but once he disappeared down one of the halls, Ling finished his decent down the stairs.

"Thank goodness you're here. Maybe you'll be able to get through to him, we haven't been able to—"

"Get through to who?" Mei asked. "Jun-li or Fu?"

Ling's face was serious.

"Both."

* * *

Jun-li had disappeared, as he was so prone to do, and Fu was avoiding them all, so they had to settle with dinner together. It should have been happy and full of catching up, and there was plenty of catching up and some laughs, but there was the undercurrent that kept all of them from enjoying what they should have been.

As they were finishing the final course however, Fu walked into the quarters. He glanced around before bowing his head.

"I'm sorry for interrupting… and not attending in the first place. However, if I may I would like to talk with Uncle Al in private."

Al's eyebrows rose before standing up and following him out.

Fu rounded on him almost as soon as the door closed behind them.

"Uncle Al, I have to know, are you here to support Jun-li?"

"What?"

"Are you here to support Jun-li. I know you're close friends with Father and Father doesn't want me to have the throne… but you can't."

Al shifted awkwardly. "Well, he is the first born…"

"No, Uncle Al, you can't. You're the one person who can understand me."

"What do you mean by that?"

Fu opened his mouth as if searching for the words to say. "On the Promised day, you sacrificed your soul so that your brother could get his arm back. So that he could fight and live."

"Yes…"

"I'm doing the same thing."

"… I'm sorry, Fu, you're going to have to explain that to me." Fu took a deep breath, and Al imagined that if he didn't have such great control he might have started pacing or running his hands through his hair.

"You have to understand that I love my brother. I'm not doing this because I hate him or I want to take the throne from him. I love Jun-li. He's my older brother, I've looked up to him for years. But you also have to understand that as much as I love him… Jun-li is not an Emperor.

"He is intelligent, and kind, and he wants to do right by Xing. But he has no patience whatsoever for politics, he can't give a speech to the court, he's never even been able to last through an entire party… even ones where he's not required to talk. He doesn't command the attention and respect of a room. He makes more enemies than friends. He's close minded and set in his ways.

"I love my brother. But he is not an Emperor. Being an Emperor would destroy Xing as well as himself. His talents are much better suited elsewhere. Away from the politics and power ploys and attention. I'm doing this for him! For Xing! You of all people should be able to understand that sacrifice."

Al found himself unable to respond.

"Have you told your father this?"

"Father won't listen. He's thinks I'm trying to justify stealing the throne from his _precious oldest son_."

"Fu… your father loves you—"

"I know he loves me. And I know that I'll never be his Jun-li. But Jun-li doesn't want to be Emperor either!"

"… how do you know that?"

Fu stared him straight in the eye. "How did you know your brother blamed himself for your sins? This is why I come to you, Uncle Al. You understand my position better than anyone else could. Please, help me make Father understand. I think Mother knows something of it, but Father doesn't seem to be able to accept it…"

"I want to talk to Jun-li about it first."

Fu pursed his lips, but nodded.

* * *

Jun-li didn't reappear the whole night. No one could find him anywhere except Lan Fan, and she reported that he refused to talk to her, let alone come down and talk to all of them.

So he would just have to come to him.

"I'm not interested, Moth—" The heir said before he even fully pulled himself up onto the roof. "… what are you doing here?"

"I wanted to see my cousin…" Liwu said cautiously trekking down the center beam.

"Last time you were up here though you almost—"

"Last time I was up here, I was five," Liwu responded, sitting down next to his cousin. "I think I'll be able to keep my balance better. And even if I do mess up, you're here."

"You're a lot heavier than you were when you were five."

"And you're a lot stronger than when you were twelve."

"… It's good to see you, Liwu. You've grown up a lot since I last saw you."

"Yeah. I really have."

* * *

_"I love my sons, Al, both of them. But this sort of squabbling… it's beneath them!"_

_"I would point out that you were a part of the same squabbling. You came to Amestris after something that it was fully possible didn't even exist just to try to get an edge over the squabbling."_

_"Yes, but I thought I did something to stop this! I took all the clans under my wing. I ended the fifty wives, fifty children tradition. I wanted this to end. And now my own sons… I raised them so that something like this wouldn't happen."_

* * *

"Jun-li do you think you deserve to be Emperor?"

"What?"

"Do you think you… deserve to be Emperor?"

"It's my birthright!"

"That's not an answer…"

* * *

_"I don't want my family torn apart. I couldn't stand that."_

_"Do you have any idea what's prompted any of this?"_

_"No! I have no clue! If I had known that there was any of this tension going on I would have done something about it! I would have talked to either of them sooner, both. Before they refused to be in the same room as each other for sure."_

* * *

"How is that not an answer?"

"It's a statement. It's your birthright. My… my birthright was to die. My biological mom was living on the street in extreme debt, I should have died. But it's not what I deserved. It's not what any child deserves."

"I've trained my whole life to be Emperor. I've spent twenty-two years learning everything there is about being Emperor. It's my entire life. How do I not deserve it?"

"Okay maybe that was a bad question," Liwu admitted sheepishly. "It's just… do you want to Emperor?"

"Of course!"

"So… why aren't you fighting Fu for it?"

* * *

_"What would you do? If… if Liwu and Nina both wanted something that people had killed you over. That you had fought with your siblings over to the point where you would have killed someone to get it. They've never shown signs of hating each other. I guess Fu always has been a bit jealous of Jun-li but… I don't know what to do Al. This is completely unprecedented. I never even considered that the throne might possibly go to Fu. And so far there's been… nothing. Jun-li doesn't even seem to realize what's going on."_

* * *

Jun-li opened his mouth to shoot back and answer, but it hung open without anything to say.

"Quyi told me that you haven't really said anything since he challenged you except to tell people that you don't want to talk. And I swear that's all this is. No one put me up to coming up here, I swear. I just wanted to talk because… I kept help but feel like you're doing what I used to."

Jun-li raised an eyebrow. "Prank courtiers?"

Liwu grinned. This was why Jun-li was his favorite cousin next to Quyi. "Okay, not that. But… I don't know, maybe I'm way off the mark. But I needed someone to snap me out of it and maybe you need the same. You remember when I was learning alchemy from Dad? Well… I didn't really care about learning alchemy."

"You didn't? But you were always the most eager of all of us when I would join in on lessons."

"Yeah. Because I didn't really care about alchemy as much as I cared about spending time with Dad. With making him want to care about me. I don't know, I just thought that maybe if I cared about alchemy as much as he did that he would love me more because of it."

"But Uncle Al loves you—"

"Yeah, I know. I learned that lesson. But all it did was make me frustrated when I didn't get it. It took Nina reminding me that I didn't need to prove anything to get me to stop it."

Jun-li blinked at his younger cousin before shifting position so that his chin was on his knee.

"Thanks for sharing, Liwu, but that's not it. It's not that I want to be Emperor to impress Father, or to feel closer to him… I just… It's all I've ever known. It's all I've ever had. I've been heir to the throne since I was born. I've been trained, taught, groomed to take the role. It's all I've ever had… And I hate it."

"What?"

"I hate it. I hate it. I hate the fact that because I was born first to my parents I have to be in charge of millions of lives. I have to lead them. I have to discuss policies that will change the lives of millions of people. I could end up starting a war that will kill all of them! Why did it have to be me? Why couldn't my parents have been farmers or some low ranking courtier? Why do the people I'm born to and the order in which I was born to them decide the rest of my life? The rest of the lives of… possibly the world!"

"So why don't you let Fu take the throne? If you don't want it…"

"But that's it. I hate it, but it's all I have. That's all my life is. Preparing to be Emperor. Being Emperor. It is everything. If I don't become Emperor, I am nothing. I can't give that up."

"Oh…"

They sat there in silence for a few moments move, watching as the stars began to come out and shine brighter and brighter.

"Well I'm not telling you what to do. But if your life was based solely on what your parents did, with my biological parents' track record, I'd be dead. It was a miracle that Dad saved me and my parents took me in. I don't think you should be forced to do something based on who your parents are if you're worried about it hurting more people in the end. Or, maybe if you can beat Fu for the throne it'll prove that you deserve it. I don't know. I really don't. But… if things don't work out, I'm sure you'd be great at saving little boys from falling off roofs."

Jun-li snorted as Liwu stood up and walked down the center beam… before turning around.

"Uh… Jun-li… I actually don't know how to get down. Getting up wasn't a problem but getting down…"

The heir snorted, before leading his cousin off the roof.

* * *

"Brother."

Everyone in the room stood when Jun-li and Liwu entered. Fu's eyes locked onto Jun-li's.

"Yes, Brother?"

"I would speak with you." Fu raised his chin. "Alone."

"Very well."

They left the room together.

* * *

"—and pronounce Fu Yao, second son of His Highness, Son of the Morning, Emperor Ling Yao, as Heir to the Imperial Throne of Xing."

Mei felt Al's fingers intertwine with hers as the words were said. The entire Imperial Family was arrayed in front of the throne room, Ling and Lan Fan in all their regalia, while Vien stood stoically in a red and gold dress and Quyi squirmed in the closed tunic they had forced him into for the occasion.

Fu and Jun-li stood shoulder to shoulder, both with their chins raised. Al was reminded very much so of the boy's father.

Fu bowed as the words as Ling pronounced the words, and didn't rise until Ling held out a hand and rose him, presenting him to the courtiers.

There was some cheering, some clapping, and silence from some, but it still took a few minutes for Fu to announce that his first act as heir was to, in conference and with approval from his father the Emperor, appoint his brother, Jun-li Yao as Head of Security of the palace, to replace the soon retiring Fie Lan.

Mei tightened her fingers around Al's. If there was ever a time for things to go wrong…

"I accept the position."

"Then let us be at peace, Brother."

The two hugged in front of the entire court.

No protests. No roars of outrage. No knives, no assassins in the shadows.

All was well.

"I guess sometimes children do learn from their parents' mistakes," Mei whispered.

Al squeezed her hand before looking at where their children were watching just as anxiously as they were. "I guess they do."

* * *

**Hmm. Lots of throwbacks in this chapter. Sorry if you thought it got a little weird there at the end. I hit the 4000 word mark and decided I just really wanted to be done with the stupid chapter. And sorry it's late! Hope the length makes up for that.**

**Please review!**


	9. Fracas

**This is one of my favorite chapters. I is excited. Hehe :D**

**More long chapters, whooo!**

* * *

"Where's Emily?"

Liwu froze, midsentence. He had been telling Zhou about some of the pranks that he and Quyi used to pull on some of the courtiers. Despite the age difference between the two and the fact that Zhou was more Nina's friend that Liwu's, the two enjoyed talking because, despite Nina's insistence that she was Xingese, they were the only two ethnic Xingese kids at their school. Zhou had learned to speak Amestrian more or less fluently by now, so that wasn't a barrier, but neither of them would quite be able to escape the second looks when someone walked by them.

"I thought she was with you," he responded, frowning.

"No, she was meeting us here," Nina responded, frowning as well.

"Could something have happened?" Zhou asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's not a far walk from her school to here, but…"

"… No, I'm sure she's fine. Emily knows how to protect herself."

"Okay."

They agreed to wait a few more minutes, but when she didn't show they decided that it would be best to split up to try to find her.

"She probably just saw a flower she thought was cool and tried to dissect it, or something," Nina said, shrugging, but both boys could see that she was a little worried.

"I'll check along the road," Liwu volunteered. Nina volunteered to check the school, while Zhou was charged with checking the stores and such that lined the street from the elementary school that Emily attended and the high school.

Liwu didn't find anything as checked the road, making sure to check behind the bushes and in the trees as he walked. Emily was easily distracted by things that caught her interest. Her favorite thing to do was learn, so if it was a choice between going out somewhere, she would always rather wander off somewhere else to watch a bird to try to figure out how it flew. Dad freely confessed that it was his fault.

Either that or she had been reading and ran into a tree and had been spending the past few minutes staring at the tree and continuing to read. He wasn't too worried… or at least that's what he told himself.

He was absorbed enough in searching the tree branches in front of him for his little sister that he almost didn't register the jeers towards him. When he finally realized that the shouts were aimed at him he turned around, frowning… and automatically sneered.

"Skinty! Yeah, we're talking to you!"

Liwu lifted his chin before turning sharply on his heel and continuing to search behind the bushes.

"Ya lose something Skinty? You lose your idol?"

"Better find it, or the devil dragon's going to eat you!"

"Good riddance I say! What do you think Skinty? Or does your devil dragon only eat Amestrians?"

"One of them almost touched me once, I thought I was going to get a disease."

"You probably did. Don't come near me!"

Liwu closed his eyes before curling his hand into a fist. He couldn't stand these guys. He knew them. It was a bunch of older boys, the year above him. There were usually five of them but sometimes they had other friends join in on their idiocy. Pretty much everyone in the school agreed that they were a bunch of idiots who weren't going anywhere in life, but they happened to big, strong, intimidating, and extremely racist.

Anyone who wasn't pure Amestrian was a target to them, someone to be gotten rid of. Which was especially hypocritical considering Amestris was an amalgamation (a word they wouldn't know) of different territories and therefore ethnicities. And most "pure Amestrians" were dependents from Xerses, of whom the last pure Xerian, Liwu's grandfather, had died almost 20 years ago.

But of all the "non-Amestrians" they hated, the Xingese were at the top. Liwu had more or less managed to avoid getting entangled with any of their idiocy or targeting, and he knew that Nina made it very clear to the rest of the school that Zhou was "under her protection" and these idiots didn't like messing with his over exuberant, teacher's pet, friends-with-the-whole-school, feisty sister. So they had never been directly threatened or bullied, but both of them silently endured barrages like this whenever around them.

He continued to ignore them as he kept walking down the road, but they didn't relent calling him "Skinty" and shouting racial slurs until he managed to give them the slip by going to the bathroom (they followed and Liwu was fairly sure that they might have attacked him in there) and climbing out the window and running into one of the stores.

He just so happened to run into Zhou in the next store, and they both confirmed that they hadn't found Emily.

"Maybe she already made it home? Maybe she's waiting where we normally wait for her."

"No, I think I would have seen her on the road…"

"While neither of us have been successful so we might as well get back there. If Nina found her, that's where she'd take her."

Luckily for both of them, the idiots were gone. Probably off to terrorize some other group of kids.

Nina was not at the normal waiting place, but ten minutes or so later when they were starting to get antsy and wanting to go looking again, Nina came into view, a little black haired, gold eyed girl keeping pace at her side.

"Sorry," Emily said, keeping her face down, which Liwu wondered at. Usually she was happy and looked people right in the face. "I had to use the bathroom."

"It's okay," Liwu forgave. "Just… try not to scare us so much next time."

"Sorry."

* * *

The incident was more or less forgotten after getting yelled at by Mei for being home so late. All three of the children were relieved when they didn't relay the information to Al when he came home though.

Then about a week later when they were waiting to walk home together, Zhou with them again, it happened again.

Nina was describing, rather rapturously, a boy in her class that she was apparently attracted to, and Liwu was making notes in his head to check this boy out to make sure he was suitable for his little sister to be interested in, when Zhou, who looked slightly upset with the topic, cut her off.

"Where's Emily? Shouldn't she be here by now?"

"Oh," Nina said, crestfallen. "Yes, she should be."

"Do you think she's in the bathroom again?"

"I'll go check," she responded, running down the street towards the elementary school.

"So… you don't like Nina talking about guys that she likes, do you, Zhou?"

"What?"

"Nothing…"

The Yu turned red.

Liwu more or less just stood there grinning while Zhou turned even redder until Nina finally arrived with Emily in tow.

"Good to go?" Liwu asked, still grinning slightly. Emily nodded, but Nina looked worried. He opened his mouth to ask what was wrong, but she shook her head and mouthed the word "later" at him.

Well Liwu didn't want to wait until later. So he got/trapped Zhou into explaining the Yu clan system to Emily while he fell back with Nina.

"What is it?"

"She was in the bathroom," Nina said, hushed. "But… she was crying. And her hand and arms were all scratched up."

"So she fell?"

"… Yeah I'm sure that's what it was. Either she fell or…"

Nina didn't finish the statement but it didn't have to be said. The alternative hung in the air between them as they stared at their little sister pestering Zhou with questions.

Either she fell or she was pushed.

* * *

"Hey Em. You alright?"

"I'm fine, Liwu. I'm actually working on a project with Mommy! She's going to teach me to change the carbon ratios in the things I'm making so I can make them stronger!"

"Good…. Um… Have fun."

"I will!"

* * *

"Skinty, whacha doing over there? Don't you realize those are Amestrians you're eating with?"

"You bet he realizes!" Oliver shouted back at them. "And you'd better back off!"

"Stick to your own kind Capria!"

"I can hardly stand my own twin, you think I want to stick to a bunch of idiots like you?"

"Hey!"

"Sorry Simon."

"Eh, the feeling's mutual."

* * *

This time it wasn't just scratched up hands, it was her face.

"What happened?" Nina asked, aghast as she examined the scrapes.

"I fell," Emily responded. "The teacher already had me wash it, so I'm fine."

"Em…"

"I'm fine," she repeated. "Can we stop and watch the birds on our way?"

"… yeah, okay, sure."

* * *

For a while he accepted it. Emily wasn't the most coordinated of them. They didn't know if it was because she was born premature of if she was just like that, but Emily just didn't have much balance or coordination. She was absolutely awful in sparring matches and lessons. A complete genius about whipping up alchemic or alkahestric circles. She knew just about everything Al did about alchemy and alkahestry combinations. Having been taught both since before she could even write and taught their origins and capabilities to be combined, she was almost even better at combining the two than Al, who had been studying it for decades. But ask her to walk across a mainly flat surface balancing an egg in a spoon?

Goodbye egg.

So he wasn't too skeptical about her falling down and hurting herself.

But one certainly doesn't fall down and get a black eye.

He didn't fight her about it on the way home from school or even bring up his suspicions to Mei or Nina. But slipping into her room at night to wish her goodnight…

"You don't have to take it."

"What?"

"You're not falling down and getting all of these injuries, Em. Something's going on, and if it's what I think it is… If it's those idiots who are hurting you, you don't have to take it. You're a genius. Hit them with one of Uncle Ed's alchemy fists. Something, don't just let yourself get hurt."

"… okay, Brother."

* * *

The next time she took a while to show up, Liwu told Nina to just go on up ahead without him.

"I'll get her," he promised. If those idiots were harassing her again, Liwu wanted to be there when they got hit in the face by a giant rock fist. He loved when Uncle Ed would talk about using them and he was pretty sure that Uncle Ed had taught Emily how to do them, even if he couldn't do them himself anymore.

He jogged down to the elementary school, did a bit of searching, before finally hearing the shouting and following that. They sounded different than usual though. Usually they were jeering, insulting… now they sounded angry.

They finally came into sight and he put on an extra burst of speed so he for sure wouldn't miss the fist… when he realized that she already had. And his sister wasn't moving.

"EM!" he shouted, pushing through the group of boys. They were too shocked that he appeared out of nowhere to stop him, so he made it through to his sister. The circle was drawn in the dirt, and the fist was sticking out of the earth so why…

"What did you do to her?" he shouted at them, making sure that he could be heard over the sudden jeers at his arrival.

"Skinty brat knocked out Reg. Gave her what she deserved. You asking for some?"

Liwu crouched by his sister's side. "You okay Em?" She nodded weakly, but didn't move beyond that. She was staring to cry. Liwu felt an unfamiliar feeling of anger rear up inside his chest and he straightened before facing the boys head on.

"What did she ever do to you?"

"Oh he knows how to talk after all. I guess he thinks he's a smart one for that." Never mind the fact that Liwu had just asked them what they had done to her. Liwu's eyes narrowed.

"I asked you a question."

"And I don't need to answer you, Skinty. You're the ones invading our country. No one asked for you to come here."

"And no one asked for you to be a jerk!" Liwu shouted back at him. "She's just a little girl!"

"She exists," the nasty boy responded, sneering.

"So you don't like the Xingese?"

"You can all go die and rid our country of your kind." The boy with the buzz cut spat. Liwu raised his chin.

"Then why don't you put your actions where your mouth is. My heritage is about as Xingese as it gets. And I'm your size. First to draw blood wins."

The boy sneered. "First to break bone."

"Deal. I win you leave my sister alone."

"If I win?"

"You can kill me."

"Liwu!" Emily shouted, pushing herself up. "You can't do that!"

"It's what you want isn't it?" he asked, ignoring his little sister. "To rid the world of our kind."

Buzz-cut cracked his knuckles and then his neck.

"Let's go."

"Em, stay away. I don't want you involved in this."

"But Liwu—!"

"Get back!" Reluctantly, she retreated.

"She needs to stick around and see what happens to her kind when they can't learn a lesson," Buzz-cut growled, a statement that his friends echoed.

"Yes, please," Liwu said, voice dripping in sarcasm. "Teach me what happens when our kind don't let biased bullies step all over us."

"Oh I will."

Then he charged.

* * *

"Liwu! What happened!" Mei shouted, when he walked in the door, Emily ridding piggy back on his back. His shirt was ripped and his nose was broken and bleeding really badly. There was the beginnings of a black eye darkening around his left eye. He was also limping pretty badly.

Despite all this he was grinning and chatting with his little sister.

"It's nothing, Mom," he responded, dropping Emily on the ground.

"What do you mean it's nothing, this is certainly not nothing!"

"I'm fine Mom. Though if I could get a little alkahestry… Emily said she didn't know how to help a broken nose…"

"Liwu… did you get in a fight?"

"… yeah. But I swear it wasn't that bad. He started it, I finished it. End of story."

"End of story? Liwu Van Elric, you do not come home to this house bruised and bloodied and expect me to shrug it off like it's nothing! What happened?"

"…So I'm guessing that's a no to the alkahestry?"

"Liwu!"

"I told you, Mom, it's fine."

"Liwu!"

He just stared at her, not answering. She eventually glared. "Don't think this issue is closed young man. We will be discussing this again when your father gets home."

"Yes, Mom."

* * *

She eventually did heal his broken nose, though she told him that he was going to have to deal with the pain in his ankle himself. He accepted that and began to work on his homework until Al came home, when he get the briefest overview he possibly could without angering his parents. There was someone messing with Emily for being Xingese and Liwu fought them so that they wouldn't ever bother her again. And he won.

Neither of them were happy with him, but they accepted it and allowed him to go to school the next day with a black eye and a limp.

He still looked better than the other boys, half of whom didn't even show up because they were probably still in the hospital. The other half gave him a wide berth.

He didn't tell anyone the full story, not even Simon and Ollie, but somehow the story got out. Probably from the boys he had fought themselves because he hadn't told anyone that he had offered his own life against his sister's safety. There had never been any doubt in his mind that he would win, so he hadn't thought of it as much of a big deal, but apparently it was on campus.

When before most people ignored him other than the occasional student that would give him a second look for being Xingese, but now everywhere he went there was whispering and people staring and pointing. It was unnerving. He wasn't sure if he was going to get talked to by the police or the principal or if maybe Buzz-cut had some other friends that Liwu hadn't beat up that were going to try to jump him after school or something.

The day ended uneventfully though. Or until he had to meet with his sisters.

"Please tell me you weren't idiot enough to do what the rumors are saying you did. You didn't offer to let them _kill you_ if you lost did you!"

"He did," Emily responded solemnly, nodding her head. Nina automatically slapped the back of his head.

"You idiot! How could you do that? What if you had lost!"

"I wasn't going to," he responded, flinching away from her as she raised her hand again. "Mom and Dad have trained me far too well to lose to a bunch of idiots like that. And besides, even if they had somehow miraculously managed to defeat me and got to kill me… the police would have found out, they would have been arrested, and Emily would have been safe either way."

"But you would have been dead! Do you know how devastated Mom and Dad would be!"

"Yes," he snapped back. "But I wasn't going to lose, so it wasn't a problem."

Nina glared at him and he contemplated having to flinch away again, but she eventually settled for just glaring.

"Well now the whole school thinks you're some kind of hero."

"What?"

"They all think you're some sort of hero," Nina responded. "I can't even count how many times I've heard someone talking about how you fought them for your little sister and how brave it was for you to stand up to them and blah blah blah. Don't get me wrong, I wish I could have done something to them for daring to mess with my little sister—" Nina's eyes darkened and Liwu almost wanted to shudder "—but it does get tiring to hear other people talk about it. There were even a bunch of girls who said that the black eye made you look _attractive_."

"What?"

"That's what I thought," Nina said. "But yes. I had to spend a whole lunch break listening to the girls sitting next to me twitter about the cute Xingese boy that had saved his sister and how brave it was. I was about to throw up. It seems you have a fan club."

"A… a what?"

"A fan club. When I told them that you were my brother they wouldn't leave me alone."

"… what?"

"My thoughts exactly," Nina responded, sounding thoroughly disgusted. "Who would want to be in a fan club dedicated to _you_?" she asked, rolling her eyes heavenwards. "Well I guess that means there's hope for me getting nieces and nephews from you after all… Oh look who's turned all red?" she said, grinning.

The answer to her question was very obviously Liwu. He had turned a flaming bright color of red.

"Still embarrassed about the thought of girls?" she asked, still grinning impishly.

"Shut up," he responded, pushing her away. Nina laughed before making the turn onto the street that led to their house.

"We don't bite, Liwu."

"Shut up!"

"Though if you've got a fan club, who knows what they might do to get a lock of your hair?"

"Shut up!"

Nina cackled before mounting their porch and opening the door to the house. Liwu, still red, moved to stomp into the house after her, but felt a hand on his shirt.

"Em?"

"… I would join your fan club," she said, staring at the ground, then hugging him around the waist. "You're my hero."

Liwu froze before slowly grinning and wrapping his arms around his sister.

"Thanks, Em. But you know I'd do anything for you."

"I love you."

"I love you too."

They stood there together for a few moments before he let go and she did likewise.

"Come on, let's go in so Mom doesn't worry we got into trouble again."

He had even reached the front door when he heard his name bellowed though.

"LIWU VAN ELRIC!"

"… what?"

Mei stormed down the hall and Liwu had to fight the urge to run out through the door for his life.

"I just got off the phone with the police and your principal! You broke five boys' arms?!"

"… I actually only broke three guys' arms… the other two I broke their legs…"

* * *

**In case ya'll were wondering, the derogatory nickname that I came up with for the Xingese is a slur on the word "Squinty". We only meet four Xingese people in FMA and of those four, only one has squinty eyes, but that one also becomes the Emperor and lets be honest do derogatory nicknames often represent the full truth? No. Quite often not. So. Yup. Cause what says the 1940s like racism? ... well, WWII... airplanes... patriotism... war... Roosevelt and Truman desegregating the US armies... beginning of the Cold War... but um... 1940s racism. Yup.**

**Ignore the history nerd in me, please.**

**In other words, Liwu is boss and now he had a fanclub. Review to join Liwu's fanclub.**

**Review anyways :D**


	10. Truth Hurts

**So... you know how I said that the chapters in RFG are going to be super long... this is about three times the size of my normal chapters... But this is kinda one of my favorite chapters. And one of the ones I've been waiting to post for a really long time. It was originally supposed to be two chapters but I realized that I as a reader would rather have one really long chapter than have to wait for two. And if I want to have this story finished before I'm a senior, then I really need to keep to my schedule and there is really no room for a two chapter arc. **

**Also, we found out yesterday that my mom had a pulmonary embolism, which is what my grandma died of before I was even born. She's taking blood thinners and the doctors are hoping that as long she's on them her body should take care of the blood clots, but if any of you are the religious type, any and all prayers would be appreciated. **

* * *

Liwu dropped the lumps of potato into the water to boil before turning around and rinsing off the cutting board and the knife.

"Can I help with anything else?" he asked, turning towards his father who was trimming fat off of a lump of meat.

"The carrots still need to be chopped," he responded, grabbing another knife to cut the meat.

"Okay." Liwu nodded sharply, grabbing the carrots off the counter next to his father and beginning to chop them up with the knife he had just been using. A companionable silence fell between the two men.

Liwu didn't know how it had quite started. It might have been that he was lonely one day because Nina was off with her friends and Chris was out of town before he had made friends at school. It might have been that he was bored. Maybe he had something that he needed to talk about. But a year or so ago he had wandered into the kitchen while his mother was preparing dinner for the family.

He had had his conversation or sat there because he was bored, or whatever it was… and found himself coming back more and more often just to watch her cook. It was fascinating to watch, really. The way that she could take a few basic ingredients and some spices and turn it into something that could feed their entire family. And then one day she had asked him to help her with something and he had done it.

Within a few months, cooking dinner with his mother became a routine. A few months after that, he learned that he loved it.

They didn't have stew very often, and when they did it would was always be his father pushing for it, but it just so happened that today was one of those days. Apparently the weather was perfect for it. Liwu would be lying to say that stew was his favorite food in the whole world as he knew it was for Uncle Ed (except maybe Aunt Winry's pies) but it was certainly one he enjoyed.

"So how was school today?" Al asked Liwu.

"Huh? Oh it was fine."

"Did you learn anything interesting?"

"Not really, actually. Most of the stuff we talked about I already knew."

"Like what?"

"We were talking about the Ishvalan War of Extermination. And the teacher only really talked about things I already knew. I got to talk about Uncle Roy though."

"What did you talk about?"

"She asked if anyone in the class knew someone who fought in the war and a couple of us raised our hand. She wanted me to talk about it a bit more when I said that the person I knew was Uncle Roy, the Flame Alchemist."

"Only a couple of people knew someone?" Al asked, raising an eyebrow and turning towards Liwu.

"Yeah."

"That's surprising."

"Well, it did happen when you were a kid. Most of the people who actually fought in it are the people in my class's grandparents. And if you want to say that Uncle Roy was like a dad to you when Uncle Ed was in the military then in a way he is my Grandpa."

"Okay, okay. I guess it's just weird for me since I know so many people who fought in it. Uncle Roy wasn't the only one, you know."

"Yeah, I know. Uncle Roy, Aunt Riza, Colonel Armstrong, and Grandpa Scar, even though he was on the other side."

It was always strange for Al to hear his children refer to Grandpa Scar. He had been able to get used to seeing and associating with the man who had nearly killed him multiple times in his childhood in a casual setting. He had thanked him profusely for protecting his wife when she was in Amestris. He had even had more than one pleasant conversation with the man. He didn't think that Ed would ever be able to do that.

It was another thing though for his children to refer to the man he had been so scared of as a child as "Grandpa Scar". Not that he minded. The Ishvalan really had been like a father to Mei during those months in Amestris. A better father than the Emperor ever had been. It made sense that he would be Grandpa. It was still hard for him to quite wrap his mind around though.

Silence fell again between them as Liwu added the carrots to the pot alongside the potatoes.

"... Dad?"

"Yes, son?"

"… um… You know I love you right." Al's knife froze mid cut.

"Of course. And you know I love you." He turned around to look at Liwu in the eyes. "And I mean that Liwu. It's not just something that I say."

"I know Dad… but…"

"But what?"

"I want to find my biological family."

Silence.

"What?"

"I'm not trying to replace you or anything I swear! But I've been thinking about it and the more and more I think about it the more I want to… I need to know. Who they are. Without these people I wouldn't be alive. Parts of me come from them."

"… I understand. I am going to warn you, though Liwu that… you might not be happy with what you find. Your biological grandparents disowned your biological mother. They probably don't even consider you family. And your biological father did… well, abandon your mother to her fate."

"I know. But I have to know."

"… alright. We can talk to your mother after dinner."

* * *

It was at the same time harder and easier than Liwu thought it would be. They had one lead, the name of his biological aunt. Tso. She had been the one that had answered his parents' questions about his mother. If it wasn't for her, his parents might not have adopted him, though both of them agreed that if it gone months without a response they probably would have decided to take him anyways.

The lead was something he hadn't quite been sure they'd be able to use, but Al and Mei assured him that she probably wouldn't be averse to at least meeting him. She had been the only one in the family that cared about her sister enough to ignore her parent's orders that they not say anything about her. She would probably want to meet her sister's child.

However, she proved rather difficult to locate. They had her first name and a vague idea about her background and where she came from, but it had been 17 years. She had probably married and had her own children. She could have moved away from her home city, she might have even moved out of Xing.

It took months to finally track her down.

She had married, and married fairly well. One of the road workers that had been employed by the infrastructure boom in Xing. They weren't exactly raking in the money, but they had food on the table, clothes on their backs, and a roof over their heads.

They debated for a while the merits of them going with him verses him going alone, and though Mei didn't like it, eventually decided that it would be better for Liwu to go alone. He was almost an adult at 17 and Al and Mei coming along would bring too much attention to the situation. And Al had his job that he couldn't leave and though they were sure that they could find someone who would agree to take Nina and Emily on for a few days, they didn't want to impose.

"Call as soon as you get to Xing," Mei ordered, fussing with the front of his jacket. "And before you go to bed every night."

"I will, Mom."

"Be careful."

"I will, Mom."

She smiled slightly before hugging him. He hugged her back.

"Love you, Mom."

"I know. And whatever you learn about your real mother, I don't want you to forget that I love you."

"That's not going to happen, Mom. And you are my real mother. I'm finding more out about my biological mother."

"It would be impossible for anyone to stop loving you, anyways, Mei," Al said, having just dropped Liwu's luggage off on the train.

"Oh be quiet."

"It's true, Mom," Nina responded, her arms crossed.

"See? I told you," Al said. "Thank you Nina."

"No problem, Dad."

"Maybe when Liwu comes home we can work on trying to find your biological parents." Everyone's eyebrows rose and they looked at Nina. She herself seemed surprised and taken aback by the offer.

"I… Uh…"

"I'm serious. If you want to know… I'm sure we'd be able to find something."

She paused before shaking her head. "No. I'm fine. I don't need to know. I think I like not knowing."

"That's the part I can't stand," Liwu said, which only made Nina shrug.

"Yes, but if I don't know it means I can pretend that I'm actually the daughter of a very rich woman whose daughter was prophesied to rule the world and the reason she gave me up was to protect me." Everyone roared with laughter, even Emily who was quite sad to see her big brother leave for a few days.

"Keep on dreaming, Nina," Liwu said, ruffling her hair, which made her glare at him. The train whistle blew and they all turned to look at it.

"Well… time to go. Bye. I'll be back in a few days."

"We know," Al responded, because everyone seemed to not want to say anything. "Now come here and give your father a hug."

Liwu obliged, and gave everyone else another hug before boarding the train. He waved to them all as he rode away before settling down on the bench and breathing deeply. This was it. He was finally doing it.

* * *

The woman who had answered the door was fairly tall for a Xingese woman. She had typical Xingese features, but her hair was quite long and she wore it loose, which wasn't something that Liwu was quite accustomed to. In Chengshi most women wore it up or out of the way. Her face was sort of similarly shaped to his own though.

"Hello, my name—"

"You're Jia's son, aren't you?" she whispered, a hand flying to her mouth.

"… yes. Yes I am."

"You look just like her."

"I do?" he asked, swallowing.

"Yes."

"… I'm sorry for intruding, but… could you tell me more about her?"

She paused before glancing back into the house. "Come in."

* * *

"Jia was the oldest of us sisters," Tso explained, handing him a cup of tea, which he accepted with thanks. "There were three of us. Our parents were… disappointed that they didn't have any sons, but if there was anyone who was their pride, it was Jia. She was… beautiful. I might…" She paused before standing up. "Wait here."

He sat there, sipping some of the tea. Glancing around the house… he could tell there were children that lived here. Young ones. The oldest was probably ten. Twelve at the oldest. There were maybe three? Two? Cousins. His cousins.

"I did keep it," Tso said, coming back into the room carrying something in her hands. "They tried to get rid of it after disowning her, but I kept it. This is her." She handed him a picture of three people. Two of them were obviously the third's parents. He gave his biological grandparents a glance before focusing his attention on his mother.

She _was_ beautiful. She had sharp features, which had been softened in his own face, but they were there. Large dark eyes that seemed to stare at him as if she knew exactly who he was. He didn't have her eyes. A quick second glance at his grandparents proved that he must have gotten them from his father, or at least his father's family.

Despite the fact that she was seated stiffly staring at the photographer with her parents standing by either side, he could tell from her face that she was usually smiling. Probably laughing.

"She never wore her hair up like that," Tso said, sitting back down and holding her own tea cup between two hands. "She would always wear it down. Her hair was beautiful. All of the girls in our town were jealous, including me."

"And what was she like?"

"She loved to have fun. She would go anywhere or try anything if there was a promise to have fun. It was why she was attracted to… to _him_."

Liwu could on assume that the "him" she spat out with so much disgust was his biological father.

"He was the son of the richest man in our village, so he could take her places and take her to do things. Our parents thought that it was wonderful that he was paying her that much attention. They wanted her to marry him to improve our status. And that was what mattered to Jia most. She loved having fun and smiling… but above all she wanted to make our parents proud. I'm sure there was no doubt in her mind that he would marry her after learning about the baby— you. But as I'm sure you know, he didn't. She was then forced to tell our parents of her shame and when he denied that he was even the father… they disowned her."

"Was she nice?"

Tso paused slightly. "She was protective. She wouldn't allow anyone she cared about to be harmed. I never had to worry about anyone picking on me because she wouldn't allow anyone to pick on her sisters. I never saw her stop to help someone that she didn't know though. She didn't like taking help from other people though." She shrugged.

"Maybe she just thought that she would want to help herself, so they wouldn't either. That was always one of her flaws. She was proud. I was surprised when I learned that she accepted help from the Ambassador."

"Well, to hear Dad tell the story she didn't really have much of a choice. He just sort of picked her up and ran to the palace."

Tso smiled. "My parents were furious when they learned that she had given birth in the palace with the Empress's own midwives attending her. They had disowned her and tossed her out… and she gets brought into the very place most of Xing dreams about being able to step a foot inside of. Though I supposed with Princess Chang as your adoptive mother, you've spent some time there."

"I… I was actually more or less raised there. I lived in Amestris for a few years when I was really little, but I can't remember much of that. Then we moved back here to Xing, and I was taught at the palace with Prince Quyi…"

"Imagine that. My sister's child being raised with the Emperor's own children." Liwu smiled before staring at the picture again. He recognized his nose. He must have gotten his height from his grandfather. Maybe his grandmother was short, but it certainly looked like he was quite tall for the average Xingeseman.

"… will you do that again for me."

"Excuse me?" he asked, looking up.

"Smile. It looks just like hers." Liwu blinked before doing his best to smile. Something in her seemed to relax.

"Thank you. You seem to have grown up into a wonderful young man." Tso reached out and touched the side of his face. "Jia would be proud. The Princess and Ambassador are very lucky to be blessed with you."

The smile he gave her that time was more genuine.

There was some commotion from the front of the house and both of them turned to look.

A man and two children entered the room a few minutes later, the man speaking to the children before calling out a greeting. He stopped when he saw Liwu at the table.

"Who are you?" he asked gruffly.

Liwu stood and bowed. "I'm sorry for intruding, sir. My name is Liwu Elric and I—"

"Elric?" one of the children asked, eyes wide.

"… Yes."

"As in the Fullmetal Alchemist?"

"Yes, like the Fullmetal Alchemist. He's my Uncle."

Both of the kids gasped and started asking a continuous stream of questions. Liwu grinned before putting his hands on his hips as he looked down at the kids.

"You bet! He doesn't have a metal arm anymore, though. But he does still have a metal leg and it's really cool."

"What happened to his arm?"

"Have you ever seen him beat up a bad guy with alchemy?"

"Does he really wear red all the time?"

"How tall is he?"

"I've never seen him beat up a bad guy with alchemy, no I'm sorry. He doesn't fight bad guys much anymore, unless they're messing with my cousins. And he still wears red a lot. He actually gave me a jacket for my birthday that looks a lot like the coat he used to wear. It's one of my favorite jackets. And he's actually pretty tall. He's taller than me."

The girl gapped at him as if she couldn't imagine anyone being taller than Liwu.

"But he used to be pretty short."

"Children, stop bothering the man," the father ordered and both of the children automatically closed their mouths and dropped their heads.

"It's alright, I don't mind. I'm used to it."

The man pursed his lips and Liwu got the message. Don't fill their heads with adventures of far off people and places. Right. He was used to that attitude in Xing, even though his mother would always protest. "If my head hadn't been filled with adventures of far off people and places I never would have come to Amestris and met your father. Or help save the world."

"But I should be going. My train should be leaving soon. Thank you for talking to me, Tso," he said, turning around. Then he frowned slightly. She had such a sad smile on her face… had he done something wrong?

"I will see you to the door," she told him, standing up and leading him to the door to the house.

"Is something wrong?" he asked her under her breath.

"No. You just… you just reminded me so much of Jia. She loved children. She would play with them just like that." Liwu smiled.

"They're great kids." He glanced back at where they had come from. "They're my cousins."

"Yes they are… thank you for coming, Liwu… my nephew. I had almost forgotten how much I miss her. You really would make her proud."

"Thank you…"

Liwu paused, quickly debating with himself. He knew that his dad didn't quite seem comfortable with Liwu tracking down his biological father… but he wanted- needed to know.

"…I know this isn't a topic you would like to discuss but… I have to know. Who's my father? My biological father."

For some reason, of all the things that Liwu had asked or talked about tonight, that question seemed to shock her more than Liwu showing up in the first place.

"What?" he asked, in response to her shock.

"You don't know?"

"… how would I know?" He frowned slightly. Was it supposed to be obvious? He had never exactly met an older man who looked exactly like him. And from the picture he looked more like his mother than his father…

"Your father."

"Yeah, how would I know who he is?"

"No, I mean your father knows. The Ambassador. He came to me some years ago and said that he needed to know who he was."

"… he's known this whole time?"

"You mean he didn't tell you?"

* * *

"Liwu!" Mei shouted when he came through the front door. "You're back! How was it?" He didn't answer his mother though, marching right past her and to Al's office.

"Liwu, you're back—!" he said happily, taking off his glasses.

"You lied to me!"

"What?"

"You lied to me! How could you!?" Al froze before setting his glasses down on his desk.

"Liwu—"

"You've known this entire time, haven't you?"

"Known what?"

"Liwu, what's going on?" Mei asked, the happiness in her voice from earlier gone.

"He's known who my father is this entire time. He's worked with him!"

There was silence following his words.

"Al?" Mei was the one to break the silence. Al swallowed and folded his hands.

"It's true."

"Al!" Mei reprimanded.

"He's one of top executives of a building company that your Uncle Ling hires for national road systems. He was quickly becoming one of the most important men in Xing. Ling invited him to court and he struck up a conversation with me. I would recognize those eyes anywhere. The next time we worked together, I had to ask Tso, so I did."

"How long?"

"…8 years."

He was breathing heavily. "So every time I've mentioned it. Every time I talked about it or him or my biological family… the entire time we were struggling to track him down. You knew?"

"Yes."

"How could you? Were you scared? Did you worry that if I knew I wouldn't want to be your son anymore?"

"Liwu—"

"You've always been afraid of that haven't you? That's why you've never let me know. That's why you never told me."

"Liwu—"

"NO! You've been lying to me. You… you're… I never want to see you again!"

"Liwu!" Mei said sharply, but he was already running down the hall and out of the house. "Liwu come back!"

Al looked like he had been punched in the gut. He felt like it and far worse. He stared out the door, not seeing anything.

"Liwu…"

* * *

It took about ten minutes after storming out of his house for Liwu to realize that he didn't know what he was going to. He didn't have anywhere to go, exactly. He didn't have any plans. He didn't even have any money on him.

He considered going to Simon and Oliver's house… but his family would no doubt look for him there. Where could he go that he wouldn't be found? He could try Aunt Gracia, but they might think to look for him there. And if he was really desperate he could try the Armstrong Mansion, but he really hoped that he wouldn't ever be that desperate. It's too bad that Chris was still in East City…

Wait a minute.

No he wasn't. He had gotten promoted to Sargent Major and transferred to Central! He was in Central! In the barracks though…

It was worth a shot.

That shot seemed far less likely to hit its target, though, when the first words that Chris said when he called him were "Are you _insane_?"

"… no."

"Why would you run away from home? And why would you come to the military for help? I'm in the barracks, we're inspected up, down, and left!"

"I didn't come to the military for help, Chris… I came to you."

"… I hate you. Stay where you are. What are you? Like a size 22? No, you're too skinny. I'll get you a 20."

"A 20, what are you talking about Chris?"

But the line was dead. Liwu had nothing to do but wait in the cold pulling his jacket tight around him and hoping that it wasn't going to rain.

Luck seemed to at least take pity on him, since it didn't seem to favor him at all, because it didn't rain and Chris did show up after half an hour or so, with a uniform tucked under an arm.

"Put it on. I hope you know what a risk I'm taking. If any of my superiors find out anything about this, I will never get promoted a day in my life, forget about any personal valor, leadership qualities, recommendations, or famous parents."

"It's just the night… and money for a train ticket to Xing?"

"… you'd better be paying me back for that."

"With interest."

"Fine. You're lucky I like you kid."

"If I'm not the best man at your wedding, I have something to blackmail you with."

"Haha, you're funny. We're going to have to cut your hair too."

"Why?"

"No one's going to believe you're really part of the military with that hair. If I had to cut it, you do."

"I… but… come on!"

"I have the scissors right here."

"Don't you come near me!"

"Do you have somewhere else to stay?"

"I'll go to the Armstrongs!"

"Really?"

"… You're conspiring with Mom aren't you?"

"I thought you said they aren't your family anymore." Liwu froze.

"I never said they weren't my family. I think if I ever tried saying that Nina'd knock me into next week."

"So why are you here Liwu? Why did you run away and why are you going to Xing?"

"… They're my family. They are. I love them all… even if Dad's been lying to me. But I have to know. This man… he abandoned my mother, but without him I wouldn't exist. I have to at least meet him. I know you wouldn't quite understand, but…"

"It's something you've got to do."

"… exactly."

"Well… I can understand those. Come on, off with the hair."

* * *

There were a few moments of panic like when a Major stopped both of them and after inquiring after whether Chris was indeed _the _Mustang and telling Liwu that he needed another haircut (to which he scowled) and inspections in the middle of the night when Liwu had to hide in a closet until the officer left.

But everything ended up alright because an hour after wake up, Liwu was on a train headed for Xing. He made a serious note in his mind to thank Chris… for the rest of his life.

And though he was extremely, extremely thankful for his assistance (the thought of the Armstrong mansion terrified him more than anything the military could cook up as a punishment for him), he was also incredibly grateful he didn't have to deal with anything like it in Xing. Quyi welcomed him with open arms, and more importantly a shower and clean clothes.

And some news.

"Xie Wang? He's um… he's that one guy."

"That one guy?"

"He does construction work. Most of the roads and railroad projects that Dad's started for the past couple of years now has been through his company. He's been invited to court a lot."

"So I've heard. When's the next time he's invited to one?"

"I can do you one better. He should be at the party tomorrow."

"Party tomorrow?"

"Yup. No particular reason, just keeping the courtiers and nobles happy type party. But he's practically made himself a noble with all the money he's made off of these projects. And I can tell you that a lot of the other courtiers hate him for it. Most of them are direct decedents of the Emperor, so they don't like that there's a commoner — a rich commoner, but a commoner nonetheless — muscling his way into court. He's almost as much of an assassination target as Fu."

"Wow."

* * *

It wasn't the first Imperial party that Liwu had attended. His mother was the 17th Princess of Xing, his father was an Ambassador, and both of them were close with the Emperor. Not to mention that he and his siblings were the Imperial children's closest cousins. This was the first one he had been this nervous at though.

He scanned the faces of the people in the crowd. No, that wasn't him. That wasn't either.

"Liwu," Quyi said, nudging his cousin. "Over there. He's getting a drink."

Liwu looked to where his cousin was pointing. The man was obviously Xingese. He was fairly tall for the Xingese, even though Liwu knew that his dad… well, that Alphonse Elric would be much taller than him. His hair was jet black and carefully oiled back away from his face. His eyes were the exact shade and shape as Liwu's. He even recognized his chin.

All of a sudden the reality of the situation hit him.

This was his biological father.

What…what was going to? What could he say to this man?

"Are you going to go?" Quyi asked under his breath. "You don't have to."

"I want to," Liwu responded, and he was surprised at how honest the words were. He wanted to talk to this man.

He set his glass down on a table, and moved towards his sire.

"Excuse me," he said, trying to catch his attention. The Xingese man glanced up from his drink and looked at Liwu.

"Hello?"

"Hi," he said, slightly out of breath from weaving through the crowds. "Are you Xie Wang?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Yes." Catching his breath slightly, Liwu bowed to him. The man inclined his head, eyebrow still raised.

"I…" Liwu trailed off. He had never been good with talking to strangers. And what was he supposed to say anyways. 'Hi! I'm your son! You abandoned my mother to live on the streets of Xing and I would have died if not for a certain Ambassador walking down the street at the right time! Hugs?' "My name is Liwu… Liwu Elric."

"Elric. As in Ambassador Elric?"

"Yes."

"Ah," the man smiled slightly. "The Ambassador is a pleasant man. I enjoyed my time working with him. He doesn't waste time on unimportant things, just gets the job done. It was a very gratifying attitude to receive from a politician."

"My father isn't much of a politician. He's always claimed to be a scholar first."

"Of course, of course," the man said, nodding. "He's quite the master at alchemy and alkahestry. He tried to explain his Mei Flower array, but I was hopelessly lost. Not one much for the mystical. I prefer hard cold numbers and profits."

"You're a businessman, yes?"

"I am. I am one of the top executives in a building company you probably haven't heard of, even though we're responsible for most of the infrastructural improvements in Xing since 1931. Are you interested in business, young man? Or would you prefer to follow your father into the political or alchemic fields?"

"I haven't decided."

"Ah. That is unfortunate. I am sure that your father wishes for you to follow in his footsteps. I know that is my fondest wish for my son."

"Your son?"

"Yes," he said, smirking proudly, as if this was a topic he was very glad to discuss. "My son, Xie. He is named after myself, of course."

"And… is he your only son?"

"Yes he is. I have one daughter also, but he is my only son."

Liwu's breathing got heavier and his next comment was clipped. "And you're sure about that?"

He raised an eyebrow again. "I think I would know if I had another son."

"… Would you?"

"Yes." He sounded almost amused at the question.

"Not even if he… walked up to you and started up a conversation."

"If this nonexistent son were to hypothetically walk up to me and start a conversation, I am certain that I would recognize it. Children tend to look like their parents, young boy. Or has no one explained to you how children come about?"

"I know how 'children come about', as you put it. I… you really have no clue, do you?"

"No clue of what?"

Liwu paused, frowning. He was not liking where this was going. "Did you know, Mr. Wang, that I was adopted? My mother was diagnosed as being unable to have children. I'm not biologically related to any of my family."

"I had heard rumors yes, but I did not know. I…" His words trailed off as he finally seemed to get what Liwu was trying to clue him in on.

"No… no it cannot be…"

"It can't? So your telling me you didn't ever have a relationship with a girl name Jia Teng back in your home village. She didn't end up pregnant. You didn't deny that you hadn't even touched her but that she was quite the slut. You didn't get her disowned and exiled by her family. You're not the reason she was forced to go into early labor on the streets of Xing. And you're certainly not the reason she died surrounded by strangers who didn't even know her name or what she was going to name the child… me."

"You're Jia's child?"

"Yes." He didn't mean to get so angry. He certainly didn't mean to speak the man as if his presence was poison. He didn't. This was his *father*. But… he couldn't help it.

The man didn't answer for a while, before clamping down on Liwu's arm and leading him away from the rest of the crowd.

"How much?" he hissed, once he was assured that there was no one in the hallway they were in.

"What?"

"How much do you want?"

"I don't understand you."

"How much do I have to pay you to keep you quiet, you little runt?"

Liwu stared at him, not comprehending, until understanding washed over him.

"You don't want the world do know you have an illegitimate son stashed away, do you?" Of course he didn't. A prominent businessman like himself, especially with his position so precarious among the courtiers, he couldn't afford to have a scandal like that come to light. Not even just a fling, but a child that he abandoned to die on the streets of Xing, only to be rescued by an _Amestrian_. It would ruin him.

"That's a stupid question," he hissed. "How. Much?"

"You're afraid that I'll tell everyone. That everyone'll know exactly what you did to my mother."

Xie's lip pulled back into a snarl. Liwu pulled himself to his fullest height, which was (luckily) taller than his father's.

"You're afraid of the fact that I could ruin you. I could destroy you. I should after what you've done."

He tried to pull himself up to Liwu's height, but he couldn't quite reach it.

Liwu could see the fear in his eyes.

"How. Much."

Liwu eyed the man who had sired him… and his lip curled.

"… why would I want people to know I'm related to scum like you?"

"… what?"

"I said, why would I want people to know I'm related to scum like you. The very idea disgusts me. I don't know how your son manages it."

"Xie is proud—!"

"Well good for him. I'm not." Then he turned around on his heel and left.

* * *

The door opened and Liwu was greeted by the sight of his sister. Her hair was up in a messy ponytail and she was wearing a pair of Xingese pants with one of their father's Amestrian T-shirts. A typical lazy day outfit for Nina.

She didn't seem at all surprised to see him there.

"You've really messed up big time, haven't you?"

"… yeah. I have."

"Was it worth it?" He opened his mouth to answer, but didn't know what to say. Was it worth it? He had been entirely disappointed in his sire. He could understand why his father hadn't told him about him. Probably describing him would require many invocations of the word banana. But the trip had also made him see exactly what he wasn't missing out on.

"… yeah. It was." Nina crossed her arms and stared at him a little longer before finally nodding and letting him in.

"Mom and Dad are out with Emily. She wanted to look at the State Alchemists library and needed Dad to get in." Even though Alphonse Elric was not a State Alchemist, Fuhrer Mustang had given him full rights and access to the library. So far, the state had continued to honor that right. "Mom just wanted to see if they had a particular text there about alkahestry. She said it was pretty basic so they might have it here. She's probably going to get in an argument with the librarian about them needing to add more alkhestry books to their collection."

Liwu smiled weakly. This was one of the things he loved about Nina. She was treating him as if nothing had happened except a small stupid little mistake.

"Were they… were they worried?"

"Worried sick, but Uncle Ling called as soon as you showed up at the palace. Mom started crying when she heard you were alright, she was so relieved. Dad looked like he was about to as well, but he didn't. At least not in front of me and Em."

"I shouldn't have done that."

"No, you shouldn't have," Nina agreed. He winced slightly. "What happened?"

"Well… I found him. My biological father."

"And?" Liwu looked up and saw the guarded look in Nina's eyes. He scoffed.

"I don't blame Dad for not letting him know about him. The man's a scum bag. As soon as he found out who I was he started trying to bribe me to keep quiet to protect his career."

Nina started at him, not saying anything.

Then she described Xie Wang the way that Liwu wanted to.

Liwu grinned.

"I can't imagine what that'd be like. To find him, after all these years, and get that." Nina snorted. "Your mother must have been a saint or something to get you with him."

The grin faded into a weak smile. "Yeah… I'd like to this so. He had my eyes."

"Technically you have his," she pointed out helpfully, which only prompted Liwu to roll said eyes at his sister.

"Shut up."

Nina smiled back at him and shoved him playfully.

Then they heard the door open.

"You ready for this?" she asked him.

"No."

"Brilliant. Let's go do it."

"Nina? We're back!" Emily's voice said.

Then the three of them walked around the corner and caught sight of Liwu.

There was silence before Emily happily called out "Liwu!" and ran at him, hugging him tightly. He smiled, hugging her back, but still glancing up at his parents. Both of them were staring at him.

"Liwu…"

"Hi Mom…" Then Mei began to cry and followed in her daughter's footsteps.

"Sorry for worrying you," he whispered, hugging her back tightly.

"Liwu Elric, don't you ever do that to me and your father again! Or we will ground you until you're married!"

"I'm not going to be getting married very easily if I'm grounded now will I?" he joked. Mei smiled, before hugging him tightly again.

"You cut your hair."

"… I didn't have much of a choice. But um. Yeah. It's a long story. Maybe I'll tell you one day… when I have grandchildren." She pursed her lips, but smiled and hugged him again.

"Love you, Mom," he whispered to the top of her head (he loved being taller than his mother).

Then he looked at his father.

"Dad… I'm… I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said those things to you. You were only trying to protect me from the truth of who… who_ he_ really was. I'm… I'm sorry."

"Liwu," Al whispered, before pulling his son into his arms in a hug that almost crushed the Xingese boy. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have kept it for you. I've regretted it every moment since."

"So… so you don't hate me?"

Al let go of the boy and bent down so that they were at eye level.

"Liwu. No matter what ever happens to me or to you or whatever we may do to each other. You are my son. And I will never hate you. It would be impossible for me."

"I'm sorry, Dad," Liwu said, hugging his father again. Al hugged him back, ignoring the tears that were managing to leak out his eyes.

"It's okay. All that matters is you're home. You're home."

* * *

**If anyone noticed/is interesting, yes that is the same Xie Wang from chapter 43 of A Source of Hope. And my brother and sister were totally routing for Liwu to start blackmailing him. I don't know if you noticed but Tso's husband works for, indirectly but he does work for him, Wang's company. And they really wanted me to have Liwu blackmail him into giving him a better position or something, but Liwu's a nice guy, he would really need evidence at that point more than Tso's testimony, Wang might try to assassinate him, and plus that would have made the chapter even LONGER. So if you want to imagine that he does so, go ahead.**

**So... long chapter. I've really been looking forward to this chapter, so ****I really hope you liked it!**


	11. Memorial

**Sorry sorry sorry about it being late, I got one of the last pieces that I needed for my best friend's birthday present (her birthday is on Friday and I still need to actually get it printed and cut and sent off) and I spent a lot of time working on that and then I had to go to my Grandma's for Easter and she really doesn't like it when people bring their computers/technology instead of spending time, so I didn't work on it there... but I did get it up this week! I've got to get credit for that, right? Because of that though it's not nearly as long as the past couple of chapters have been. Sorry.**

* * *

"Everyone gather around," Al said, grinning as he gathered his small family together. Well, his small family plus his daughter's best friend Zhou who's family refused to celebrate the Amestrian New Year prompting him to celebrate it with the Elrics, plus Gracia, Chris, Chris's girlfriend Victoria, and his nephew Benjamin, who was in Central during the New Year trying to find a job in Central.

Even though the boy had followed in his father's footsteps in pursuing alchemy, he hadn't quite been able to shake the hours spent in his mother's workshop watching her craft new lives for other people. So after working for his mother for a few years, he was now looking for a job in Central alchemically creating new alloys that could be patented and used for automail. Al had been happy to take the 25 year old in while he was job searching, which saved Benny the cost of renting a place.

"I would like to say, before the New Year, that I'm so glad that all of you could be here. Mrs. Hughes, you will always be welcome in our home."

"And you in mine." He smiled at her.

"As will you Chris, and as long as you don't break his heart, Victoria, you will be welcome too." Chris chuckled before putting his arm around his girlfriend's waist. "I don't think I could get rid of you if I tried, Zhou," Zhou blushed, but Nina just laughed and Liwu punched him lightly on the arm, "and it's been a pleasure to have you stay with us the past few weeks, Benny."

"Thanks, Uncle Al."

"I wish the best 1944 to all of you. May it be the best year yet."

Everyone cheered in agreement.

"I think we have about a minute left until midnight."

They all dispersed, though none of them went far.

"Alphonse." Al turned around and ducked around his son and daughter to reach his wife.

"Yes, Mei?"

"I just wanted to make sure that we were next to each other when the New Year came. We have to make our wishes together, after all."

Al grinned. Ever since that moment when they were teenagers when Mei had dragged him through the streets of Xing to see the New Year's fireworks and they told each other of their goals for the year, it had become a tradition between them to tell the other what their desires for the new year were. Amestrian New Year or Xingese, whichever they had more access too.

"I can't think of a better way to spend the beginning of the New Year."

"Good." Al moved so that he could hug her from behind and rested his chin on her shoulder.

"Are you sure we should have let Emily say up this late?" Mei asked as they both looked out at the crowd. The nine year old was chatted animatedly about her alchemy studies to a Gracia that was smiling and nodding, even though Al was fairly sure she didn't know any of the words coming out of his daughter's mouth.

Al chuckled. "Do you think we could have kept her asleep and in her room?"

"No, probably not."

"Exactly. She was going to be up anyways, it's better to keep her up and in a place where we can keep an eye on her rather than have her unsupervised in her room. She might have tried to transmute her own fireworks and set the house on fire."

"Oh, I supposed you're right."

"Of course I'm right, my dear."

"I thought the wife was always supposed to be right."

"Can you honestly say we have a typical relationship?"

It was Mei's turn to chuckle. "No, not really. Not many people met fighting for their lives. Even fewer traveled to distant lands to find their love."

"Yes, forget about alchemy or any other friends in Xing. I came because I was desperately in love with a beautiful Princess and I wanted to sweep her off her feet onto my white horse and ride off into the sunset."

"Exactly."

Al grinned before kissing the side of Mei's head. "And if I'm not mistaken," he raised his voice, "we have about 15 seconds left till midnight. So, Chris if you would mind giving us a countdown."

Chris nodded and pulled his pocket watch out of his pocket. Well, his father's old pocket watch.

"Twelve, eleven, ten, nine, eight, seven, six."

The rest of the room chimed in on counting down the rest of the number.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One.

Everyone in the room cheered and Al caught sight of Chris sneaking a kiss with his girlfriend that made him grin. Especially when he nudged Benny and pointed it out. The two were close enough in age that they had more or less grown up at the same rate. And even though they hadn't exactly grown up next door they had interacted enough that they were almost like distant cousins. He was going to watch what happened, but found something tugging on the front of his shirt and he was suddenly yanked down a little less than a foot to meet his own wife's lips.

He grinned, place his hands on her hips while hers found their way into his hair.

"Mom! Dad!"

They pulled apart and Al grinned at his daughter's mortified face. "What's wrong Em?"

"Stop kissing! It's gross!"

"It's a sign that we still love each other. You should be glad that we still love each other after all the time I've wanted to kill him," Mei said, keeping her arms around his neck.

"Yeah, but it's gross!"

Al's grin widened before touching his lips to his wife's again.

"Dad!"

"I just love you so much, Mei."

"Mhmm." She murmured kissing him back.

"MOM!"

"… that's weird, Uncle Al." Chris commented, still slightly pink from Ben's ribbing.

"Says the boy that was just kissing his own girl. Just because I'm old I can't kiss my girl?"

"I think it's sweet," Gracia commented, and Victoria echoed the sentiment, which made Chris stutter and try to take back what he had said.

"You get used to it with my parents," Benny said, prompting his cousins to laugh and Emily to grimace again.

* * *

The gathering finally ended around 1:00, by which time everyone was exhausted. The children plus Benny all went to bed while everyone else bundled up and left for their own destinations. Al and Mei even skipped their usual nightly routines in favor of passing out as soon as they hit the mattress.

The next morning dawned clear and crisp, and everyone woke up late.

Because there was no school for these few weeks and Al didn't have work that day, he prepared a special breakfast for the family, which all of them thanked him for as they woke up at their own times and filed downstairs.

Mei came first, already mostly ready for the day followed by Liwu ruffling his now short hair and yawning widely, Emily already awake and dressed with her hair in twin braids bouncing down the stairs, and then Benny with his blond hair falling around his shoulders and antenna sticking up stubbornly. For a moment Al almost seriously thought that it was his bother as a teenager walked down the stairs.

Nina was the last, and perhaps the least in terms of being awake. Her hair was a frizzy mess because she hadn't taken it out of the braids she had been wearing it in the night before and she was still dressed in one of Al's t-shirts and Xingese styled pants.

"Good morning, sleepy," Emily chirped when the zombie finally arose from the dead. Nina raised an eyebrow before ruffling Em's hair.

"Oh go back to bed, you humming bird."

Emily didn't, just grinned and bounced off to talk to Benny about alchemy. She had loved having her older cousin over the past few weeks.

"What time is it?" she asked as Al handed her her plate of breakfast.

"It's almost 11."

"Wow I slept late. Sorry."

"I'm not the one that's sorry. You're the one that's breakfast went cold."

She snorted slightly. "Thanks."

"You're welcome."

Al left his daughter to eat her eggs in peace and joined in on a conversation that Mei and Liwu were having. Then the phone rang. He moved to go get it but Nina was already up and moving towards it.

"Hello? Yes this is Nina."

Al glanced away from her, continuing the conversation… before hearing the phone drop.

He turned around sharply to see Nina standing there, the phone dangling from its chord. Her mouth was open before quickly being covered by a hand. By that time all conversation in the room had died as everyone stared at her.

"Nina?" Emily was the only one brave enough to ask. Nina just shook her head, repeatedly.

"Sweetheart," Al prompted, moving forward. "What…"

"Katie," she sobbed, tears starting to fall from her eyes. Al frowned, as a dark feeling fell over him. Katie was Nina's best friend. The only person that had a chance of being considered a closer friend was Zhou.

"What?"

"Katie was driving home from the New Year's Party she was at last night and, and… someone else on the roads was drinking… they hit her… she's… she's… dead."

* * *

Al went to the funeral with his daughter. He hadn't known the girl particularly well, nor her parents, but he couldn't let his little girl go alone. She had been so heartbroken the past few days. He had done his best to comfort her, after all he had had his fair share of deaths in his life, but she seemed inconsolable.

The funeral was very well attended. It seemed that Katie was the same sort of girl that Nina was, friendly to everyone even if you didn't want to be her friend. It seemed like everyone in the school knew her, and most of them showed up to give their respects to the girl that was kind to so many of them.

Al stood almost at a distance the entire time. Nina embraced friends and friends embraced her when they saw her. Upon reaching Katie's mother, she pulled Nina into a hug that looked near bone crushing. That was perhaps the moment that brought Al the closest to tears. The grief in the parents' face. Their little girl had been taken from them in an instant. Who's to say that couldn't happen to Nina next? To Liwu or Emily or Mei? The thought filled Al's veins with terror.

He wasn't sure what prompted him to go and speak to the parents, but he did and offered them his deepest condolences. When they learned that he was Nina's father they thanked him deeply for raising such a wonderful girl to be their daughter's friend. Al waved away their credit.

"Nina's one of the rare souls in this world that's just naturally kind to every soul she meets. Well, except someone who tried to mess with her family. I'm just incredibly lucky to have her in my life." He glanced over to where Nina was currently tucked in Zhou's arms. The Xingese boy had been the only thing that had managed to comfort her at all the past few days.

"Well we can't thank you enough for bringing her into our Katie's life. She was a wonderful friend and I know she meant the world to her."

"I'm so sorry for your loss." The mother sniffed and smiled slightly.

"Seeing all of these people here to honor her though… it almost makes it better. It means our daughter changed every person who came today's life in a way that will make them remember her forever. And that's all we ever could have hoped for our daughter."

* * *

"Nina?"

Al was surprised. He had searched the crowds searching for his daughter after speaking to the parents to see if she was ready to go home or not. Not that he was anxious to leave, he just wanted to be there when she was ready to.

He hadn't been able to find her anywhere though. A whole half an hour after speaking to Katie's parents, he finally found someone who told him that he thought he had seen her walking among the other tombstones.

It took another ten or twenty minutes before he finally found her standing in front of a tombstone he didn't even knew she knew existed.

_Nina Tucker_

_1910-1914_

"Nina… what are you doing here?"

She didn't answer for a few seconds. He debated reaching out and pulling her into a hug, but his hand didn't seem to want to move.

"I come here twice a year."

"What?"

"Here. To visit her grave. One on my birthday and once on her's."

"… why?"

"I've never forgotten. Do you remember when you first told me about her when I was a little girl."

"Yes."

Nina still hadn't looked at him, just kept staring at the tombstone. "She was the same age I was. It terrified me. I didn't understand how something so horrible like that could happen to someone who was just like me."

"Nina—"

"And then you promised me that it wouldn't happen to me."

"What?"

"You promised me that you would never let anything like that happen to me. You promised to protect me. And Elrics always keep their promises, right?"

"Right. And I've never broken it."

"I know, Dad. And I'll never forget it. But I come here twice a year to remind myself of that promise. That no matter what happens, you'll never let anything bad happen to me. Except… Dad, what if it was something like this? What if it was just a sudden car crash?"

"That's the reason your mother learned alkahestry, you know. She witnessed a man nearly slice off his foot in the rice paddies and couldn't stand being helpless. So she demanded to learn something that would allow her to help people. I can't tell you how many times that moment has saved my life."

"I know… which is why I want to be able to do something like that too."

"Sweetheart?"

She looked at him for the first time, squaring her shoulders. "I want to be a nurse."

"Really?"

She lifted her chin as well. "I do. I want to be able to help people too. Maybe if she had managed to get treatment sooner or if someone was there that could have helped her… she wouldn't have died… That's the right thing to do isn't it?"

Al smiled before giving into the urge he had been repressing for the past few hours, pulling Nina against his chest in a tight hug. She wrapped her arms around him as well and he kissed the top of her blond head.

"Of course it is. And I couldn't be prouder of you."

She pressed herself tighter against his chest and Al reaffirmed his grip.

"I won't ever let anything happen to you. I won't."

"You might not be able to do anything to stop it from happening."

"No, but that won't stop me from trying. You're my little girl, there's nothing I wouldn't do for you."

"Okay, Dad," she whispered, before pulling away from his chest a little. "So does that mean you'll pay for me to drop out of school and get a tattoo?"

"Ha. No."

"What happened to Elrics keeping their promises?"

"Well, technically I'm a Chang."


End file.
